Deja Vu All Over Again
by weebee
Summary: Ranma Saotome was raised to be the greatest martial artist of all time by a person who thinks himself the greatest martial artist of all time. There's probably a logical impossibility there, but who cares?
1. Prologue: Fish Sausage?

Deja Vu All Over Again.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma One Half, or any of the dozens of other series that may or may not show up later in this bit of insanity.

Timeline: Um, I can't seem to find my notes here... it's.... sometime.

Prologue, Fish Sausage?

Nerima was, for one of the very few times in its average day, quiet and peaceful. This wasn't due to any special events, or horrible tragedies, but rather because it was midnight, and Nabiki and Akane had tag-teamed Ranma and Ryoga for the tongue lashing of a lifetime last time anything had disturbed them this late.

As such, it came as a bit of a surprise that Happosai, who was usually out and about capturing undergarments all night, was tip-toeing through the second floor of the Tendo compound's main house, clutching something in his hands. As he entered Ranma's room, and passed the window that cast soft moonlight across the floor, the object in his hand gleamed brightly.

"Hmm." The old man sneered, ensuring that he was quiet as he did so. "It's time to get rid of the boy once and for all." He had taken this treasure out of his collection of stolen artifacts, a powerful item that had once belonged to the amazons, and fully intended to use it on the impudent brat… especially since he'd had the gall to beat the old man to within an inch of his life only two weeks earlier, after the wedding incident.

As he crept closer to Ranma's bed, Happosai noticed that the boy was clutching the sheets in white-knuckled fingers, soft gasps and whimpers coming from barely open lips. The old man pondered this for a moment, moving his gaze to the boy's eyes, and smiled. His original plan had been to inflict hell on the boy, but whatever he was dreaming about now, it had to be just as bad or worse to induce such a reaction.

Sliding the small object he'd been holding carefully forward, Happosai positioned it on the pillow right under the boy's head, and as his tightly closed eyes let loose a single tear, the room lit up with a bright white flash.

HR.

Ranma tumbled down, into the darkness. He had done so already tonight, he thought, but it didn't seem to matter as the nightmare had started itself again like a skipping record. As he hit the floor of the pit with a painful thud, he heard the tinkling sound of breaking glass, but that only intruded on his senses for the barest of moments as the smell of fish sausage, blood and unwashed animals assaulted his nose.

Strangely, unlike all of the other times he'd had the nightmare, the monsters weren't instantly closing in to tear his flesh, and he forced himself not to curl up into a ball, to look around and see what was going on. As always, the light of the world above stabbed down into the pit, giving some illumination, and Ranma could see the shadows that skulked around the edges, making him shiver, but he could also see something new.

There was a small figure in a tattered and torn white fighting gi only a few short feet away from him, the sound of whimpering sobs clearly audible even past that of the loudly mewling monsters circling. Confused, Ranma reached out to touch the other, but the cats acted as he did, as if his movement were somehow the trigger for theirs.

As they swarmed inward, sensing two pieces of fresh meat rather than one and not caring that one of them was many times larger, Ranma Saotome's sanity broke like a dry twig in summer… twice.

HR.

Sitting next to the pit of cats where he had just dropped his son, Genma Saotome looked out towards the forest, trying to ignore the sounds coming from beneath him. At the moment, he wished that he'd never even found that Neko-ken training manual, as it had tortured his son to the point of death while returning only a powerful phobia, but he was set on his path, now. Ranma had been given the weaknesses of the cat-fist, and Genma was determined that the boy would gain the strengths. After all, taking only the weaknesses of another style was anathema to practitioners of Anything Goes, and Genma knew that Ranma was destined to be one of the best.

Still, as he heard a new cry of pain and a loud thud from inside the pit, he cursed himself once more for ever thinking this was a good idea, and slowly brought his vision down, peering into the darkness. For a moment, he thought he could make out two shadows, before a loud, cat-like yowl emanated from the depths, and something streaked out of the hole, knocking the heavy-set martial artist down.

As he scrambled to his feet, Genma heard something growling behind him, and spun to see what it was. At the sight of his son, being held by the back of the gi in the teeth of what looked like an older boy in a pair of boxers and a tank-top, he blinked rapidly. "Wha… who are you?" He blustered. "How dare you interrupt my son's training!"

Genma knew he was in big trouble, since if anyone caught him out here doing this he'd probably end up in jail for years for child abuse, but he couldn't let that show on his face. The older boy's head snapped up, his jaws first letting go of Ranma to tumble onto the ground and to his side, and regarded Genma with inhuman, ice-blue eyes. For a moment, Genma thought he'd recognized the face, but that moment was short-lived as the boy started forward at speed, his hands and feet leaving deep furrows in the ground every time they impacted.

Genma turned to run, but didn't do so fast enough, as bright lines of pain etched themselves down his back, his blood exploding from them in small streams. After this, the larger, more feral boy seemed to bat the fat man onto his side, and raise his hand for a killing blow. Just as he brought it most of the way down, a smaller, more tentative yowl came from behind him, and he turned, noting the smaller pigtailed boy padding up to him on all fours.

The larger neko-ken victim cocked his head sideways, surveying the smaller, who shook its head and pointed at Genma's still, and probably unconscious body with its nose. The larger meowed plaintively, but eventually caved at a look from the other, and the two jumped away, leaving Genma Saotome alone with his injuries.

HR.

By a river several miles away, an old woman leaned back in a lawn chair, a fishing rod held carefully in her hands. She really enjoyed fishing, as it was a peaceful activity, but had just enough of an element of unpredictability to it that it made it fun for someone as world weary as she was.

She really didn't like thinking about precisely how old she was, but then, when she was in the thick of things in Tokyo she didn't have to, and she still liked to come out here into the forest, where all she had to do was think. Chuckling to herself, the woman felt a tug on her line, and tightened her grip in order to start reeling in the fish she'd caught there. She brought it up expertly, smiling to herself as she saw a large carp dangling from the end of her line.

She was about to take it off and throw it back into the water, when something small and insanely fast flashed through the space right in front of her hands. When she stopped blinking, she noted that her carp was missing. "Hey!" She grumbled, turning to follow the movement of the fish thief, and gasped. Sitting on the ground nearby and consuming the food greedily was a young boy whose clothing looked like it'd been through the paper shredder, and who had large, deep gashes all over his body.

The old woman immediately jumped up from her chair, moving over to the boy and reaching down to check some of his wounds. When he turned to her with an indignant hiss, she jerked back, something in the back of her mind starting to set off warning bells.

About five seconds later, the brush nearby crackled, and the woman looked up to see a larger boy, this one perhaps seventeen, walking through the trees on all fours. It was about then that the alarm bells in the woman's mind took on actual meaning, especially as she saw the gouges the boy's hands and feet left in the ground, and the thin splatter of blood all over his face and chest.

"Oh… damn." She muttered, backing away slightly, but hearing the sounds of the other Neko-ken victim behind her still noisily devouring his fish. She'd honestly never seen two of them at once, and it was rather intimidating. As the larger one stalked towards her, she reached into subspace, withdrawing her trusty weapon. This seemed to set the large cat off, as it started bounding towards her.

Oddly enough, it gave out a happy "Meow!" before bounding at her and swiping out with one hand to knock the staff she'd drawn flying across the clearing. She closed her eyes, waiting for the savage martial artist's claws to tear her heart to pieces, when his weight caught her in the chest, sending her stumbling back, tripping over the smaller Neko-ken victim, and flailing, undignified, straight into the water.

As she blinked her eyes clear of river water and wondered why she hadn't been disemboweled, the old woman noticed that the teenager who had just slammed into her had changed, somehow. Rather than being a lean yet muscular young man, with intimidating, feral eyes, it was an equally lean, muscular young woman with a confused and terrified look on her face.

The girl blinked rapidly, looking around as if she'd never seen the river-side clearing before in her life. "Wha?" She asked, intelligently, before noticing that she was sitting on something. As she looked down, noticing the woman whose lap she knelt on in knee deep water, she started babbling. "Um, this was an accident, and I don't know what's goin on, and I'm really sorry, and it's probably all the ol' man's fault, 'n I'm really sorry, 'n…" She started, looking as if she was likely to be at this for quite a while.

The woman sighed, and having seen this kind of behavior in at least one of her teammates back in Tokyo before, slapped the redhead firmly across the cheek.

The shorter girl blinked several times, and then her eyes cleared of their panic. "Thanks, I needed that." She muttered, quickly getting up and allowing the woman to stand, ringing out the small part of her long green hair that had fallen into the water.

She merely nodded with an enigmatic smirk, trying to enfold herself in the remains of the dignity that had been lost to her when she'd been knocked on her ass in the river, and stepped out, cautiously noting that the smaller neko-ken victim had finished his fish, and was laying on the ground contentedly letting the sun play over his body.

Seeing the small boy, the redhead who had once been a larger, quite similar looking one blinked. "Okay, did I get hit on the head too hard again?" She mumbled, causing the old woman to quirk a curious eyebrow at her. Knowing that she had to explain, but not sure how, she answered "That's… me."

HR.

Ranma Saotome walked along a trail next to a woman who looked strangely familiar, carrying a sleeping duplicate of herself, or at least of how he'd looked about ten years ago, held in her arms. They were apparently going to a small cabin the woman owned, where she could treat the younger boy's injuries. Ranma winced as she looked down, noting the lacerations and bruising that covered the smaller child's frame.

She was relatively sure she knew how he'd gotten them, too, even if she didn't know why this was happening. As the group was approaching a small, cozy looking cottage that was just off the clear-cut trail that lead through the woods, however, the woman who was leading Ranma asked her a question that almost made her drop the small boy she was carrying.

"So, why are you time traveling?" She asked, off-hand. Seeing the shorter girl stop dead in her tracks, she sighed. "I can tell, you know, especially when you come charging into my favorite fishing spot with a younger version of yourself."

Ranma frowned for a moment, but had to admit that explanation did make sense. "I really don't know. I just sorta woke up falling into the pit." She shuddered, not wanting to remember that again, and then winced. "If I met a younger version of myself, isn't that really bad, or something?"

The green haired woman snorted. "You've been reading too much manga. If you were from this timeline's future, you'd be giving me a migraine by now." She explained. Seeing the redhead's confused look, she continued. "This is his timeline, not yours. They haven't been the same since you arrived."

Ranma nodded, not really sure what she meant by that, but knowing that the details weren't her problem. After the other woman had unlocked the door to the cottage, Ranma walked in and put the smaller boy on a comfortable looking feather bed that lay in the corner.

"I can start patchin him up." She said, as she was handed a box of medical supplies. "Can ya get me a cup of hot water?" The woman nodded, and Ranma sat next to the bed, bandaging her own injuries and wondering what to do next. Time travel, unlike a lot of other things, was honestly something she'd never had to deal with before. Still, if what the green haired woman said was true, it was possible that she could help this kid, this smaller version of herself, have a less crappy life than she had. Even telling him enough to let him avoid Jusenkyo or the Amazon village would be a step up.

"Here's your water." The green haired woman said, and watched with interest as the smaller girl accepted it and dumped a small amount over her hand, her body shifting and reforming until she looked like the male who had first jumped on her.

"Um, thanks." The now male martial artist said, then realized something and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'm Ranma Saotome, by the way."

"Setsuna." The woman returned, and grabbed up several bits of gauze from the first aid kit, helping Ranma work with a proficiency that spoke of much practice.

HR.

Ranma Saotome awoke to a headache to rival the one he'd gotten that one time he'd snuck into his father's sake stash. The last thing he'd remembered, the older man had told him that he would only have to go into the pit two or three more times, and had shoved him down while he protested. The blackness had closed around him, and there had been a flash of bright light, and then everything had gone dark.

Forcing his eyes open, he saw that there were two older people hovering over him, looking worried. One was a pretty older woman with forest green hair, while the other wore his jet black hair in a pigtail, similar to his own, and had strangely familiar blue eyes. "What happened?" He asked, confused.

The woman sighed in relief, offering the young boy a glass of water with a straw in it as she talked. "You've been through quite a bit." She said, concerned. "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine." Ranma returned, and then sipped a bit of the water, allowing the cool liquid to soothe his dry throat. "But, where's my dad?"

The boy cleared his throat and spoke this time, sounding a little bit nervous. "I haven't seen your father," He said, "But he's probably lookin for ya."

Ranma nodded, wondering if his dad would come and grab him in the middle of the night this time, and lay back for a moment before remembering something. "Where am I? Who are you?"

"I'm Setsuna." The woman returned. "You're at a cabin I maintain in the woods. As for him…" She trailed off, and threw a look at the older boy, whose face furrowed in concentration for a moment.

"Um," He said, uncertain, as if he couldn't remember his own name. "I'm… Saffron." He finally decided, causing the woman to give him an odd look. "Ya should probably rest for a while. I know that I was tired when I first woke up from the Neko-ken."

"You know the Neko-ken?" Ranma asked, surprised, but the boy shook his head, and gestured for the woman to follow as he stood up and walked away. She smiled, leaving the glass of water on a table within easy reach of Ranma, and followed.

As they moved past Ranma's earshot, Setsuna raised an eyebrow. "Saffron?" She asked.

The older boy shrugged uncomfortably. "I hadn't been through much weird stuff yet." He explained. "Doubt he'd react too well to me saying I'm him. As for who Saffron is, let's just say he's not likely ta know I swiped his name… I hope… and leave it at that."

"True." Setsuna said, nodding. "So, what did you want to tell me outside of his earshot?"

Saffron frowned darkly. "This isn't goin the way I remember it." He explained. "I don't really remember if it was you who found me or not, it's kinda hazy, but I know Pops was there when I woke up the first time."

Setsuna nodded. "As I said, this is a different timeline, so it's possible that your father won't find you as quickly."

Saffron nodded, then frowned and looked back at Ranma. "Yeah… I just, I'm not sure if I wanna have the ol' bastard find him. I know I'm probably just supposed ta leave and find a way to go home, but if he goes through what I did over the next ten years, it's gunna screw his life up pretty good."

Setsuna nodded. "And you want to spare him that." She said, then smiled. "I'm not sure if that's altruism or self-interest, but it's a sentiment I can understand." She looked at the boys, both of them, who were in her house, and thought for a moment. Neither of them had made a ripple on her temporal radar, the sense that informed her of things that would cause great change to what she had been planning for several thousand years, and if the boy somehow managed to get a Jusenkyo curse in the future, his life would turn out strange, and perhaps tough, indeed.

"I'm not sure what to tell you." She admitted. "One in my position is usually expected to strongly urge you not to change things…" She looked off into the distance, and then smiled sadly. "Then again, I'm not fond of being so hypocritical."

Saffron considered asking about that, but decided it wasn't any of his business. Nodding, he said, "I'll do what I thinks' right, then." For a moment, he saw an image of his mother, her face so sad, every time Kasumi told her that Ranma and Genma were on another training trip.

Turning, he walked back to the bed where Ranma was sitting now, sipping at his glass of water, and smiled at him. "Hey, kid?" He asked.

"Hmm?" Ranma returned, looking the other over speculatively.

"Ya wanna go see your mom before you keep traveling with the old man? The injuries you took during the Neko-ken training are gunna need some time to heal, anyway."

The boy's eyes lit up. "You know where she is?" He asked, surprised. "I can show her how good I've gotten in the art so far!"

The larger pigtailed boy nodded, smirking. "Yeah, definitely." He said, simply. 'Sorry ol' man, but you ain't getting this kid cursed and hunted if (I've got anything to say about it.' He thought, looking for a moment out into the forest where he knew Genma was hobbling around somewhere. He knew the man should have been here sooner, but didn't really care. After all, this was Genma, and he could probably survive a military bombing run.

HR.

About two hours later, Ranma had rested to the point where he could walk with some help, and Saffron had chopped and stacked enough wood out in front of Setsuna's place to keep the fire stoked for a couple years, earning about six thousand yen in the process, which would help them on their way to Tokyo.

"Hey, you've got to show me that speed technique!" The younger boy said, and he would have been bouncing with excitement if his injuries allowed it.

The older boy shook his head, laughing. "I would, but then the ghoul I learned it from would probably kill me."

"Aw," The younger said, but 'Saffron' could see his eyes narrow in a way he recognized. He made a mental note not to use anymore Amazon Chi techniques, since he'd sort of promised Cologne that he wouldn't teach them to anyone else when she'd told him about them.

"So, you two are ready?" Setsuna asked, though she looked at the bandages on the younger boy's leg dubiously. Since the smaller one nodded his head the fastest, evidently excited about where they were going, she sighed in exasperation. "All right, then I should wish you good luck." She commented, then raised a hand as they were about to leave. "Just one request. Both of you, stay out of the Minato ward of Tokyo for the next five years or so."

Saffron was about to nod, when he suddenly winced, a memory flashing up at the back of his head of the same woman saying the same thing to his father, and adding the qualifier that if he ever stepped foot within the ward's limits, she'd use his intestines for washing line. Shivering, he was suddenly very aware of why the old man had avoided the place. "Yeah, no problem." He simply said, resisting the urge to turn grey.

As the two martial artists turned and started to walk off, the younger once again badgering the older to learn his speed technique, Setsuna wondered if she'd perhaps been a bit too helpful and lenient to the pigtailed time traveler. Still, she had been on her vacation, and he hadn't tripped any alarms. It probably wouldn't matter.

END.

Okay, well there it is. I hope you like the first chapter of what may be yet another ill-fated fic of mine, or may not.

Now, some "helpful" explanation.

I'm using the Manga timeline, where the Namban Mirror was never shown or used. I figure I can use it, since if I didn't I'd just have to make up another artifact, but that's why it's here and not broken into thousands of little bits.

The second note is on the time this story's set in, and is why I wouldn't say where in the timeline everything was at the top.

Older Ranma - Age 17 - Post Saffron - Home Time: Late 1989.

Younger Ranma - Age 6 - Post Neko-ken - Home Time: Mid 1978.

Setsuna Meiou - Age ??? - Mid Super-S Season - Home Time Mid 1978.

I hope that helps.


	2. Chapter 1: Setting Things Right

This fic was surprisingly popular. I mean, 35 reviews for one chapter? Well, I really hope your confidence in me wasn't misplaced, and here I go trying chapter 1. Please tell me how I did, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Chapter 1, Setting Things Right.

In a small, quickly improvised tent made of two tarps tied together, a short red haired woman sat, leaning against one of the trees she'd used as support poles, and holding the plastic in place against the heavy downpour outside. "Just my luck." She muttered, glaring forward at the other end of the construction, where a small boy slept in relative comfort on his futon.

Sighing, the redhead grimaced as a bit of water seeped past the edge of the tarp, dripping on her head, and wished that she'd been more careful in picking out the trees for their camping spot. It had only been a few hours after the two had departed Setsuna's cabin, after passing through a small town to pick up a few things with the money they had, that the two had decided to make camp for the night. This had primarily been motivated by the fact that Ranma's injuries were still painful to walk on, and the redhead herself was feeling unusually tired.

Unfortunately, they hadn't had quite enough money to afford an actual tent, and their improvised alternative hadn't held up well to the storm that had blown in at about three in the morning, waking the one who currently called herself Saffron by almost collapsing the whole thing onto her.

So now, here she sat, trying to keep the thing up so at least Ranma could get some sleep, and resolving that she'd find a proper place to sleep tonight, even if she had to resort to some of her father's tactics. Frowning, she thought of the resources she did have.

Setsuna had given them about six thousand yen, plus a spare change of clothes each. Ranma's T-shirt and pants were obviously originally meant for a young girl, and Saffron hadn't had the courage to ask where Setsuna had gotten the men's school uniform she now wore, but it was better than a torn fighting Gi and what was, effectively, underwear.

Other than that, all they had to their names was Saffron's old wallet, which she'd started keeping in a chi pocket, using the bare essentials of the Hidden Weapons style, shortly after she'd started getting actual money and Genma had started stealing it.

As she was about to start contemplating what she could do with what she had, the redhead heard a sound. Moving her head to track it, she realized that it was coming from Ranma, who was whimpering softly in his sleep. Looking over, she saw that he'd curled into a ball, and was quivering.

She, of course, knew what this was. The boy was having a nightmare about the Neko-ken, which made a lot of sense given that he'd only finished the training the day before. For a moment, she considered using her father's method of stopping the dreams, but even she didn't particularly want to get out of the warm, sort of dry tent for a spar, so she moved forward, letting the tarp fall and anchoring it to the ground with a small rock.

She hadn't done this before since it dramatically reduced the space within the tent, but she wasn't exactly intending to lay back down. Moving silently, the redhead approached the small boy and lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. Almost instantly, he started to calm down, but he also rolled to get nearer the new source of warmth, cuddling up to her arm.

"Ack! What're ya doin?" She muttered, but the boy didn't respond, moving from hugging her arm to hugging her. The redhead's eye twitched, but apparently what he'd done had calmed Ranma down, and he'd stopped whimpering. "Damn it." Saffron sighed, and moved to get comfortable, the boy laying his head in her lap. "Anyone sees me doin this, I ain't gunna live it down."

Still, the redhead smiled to herself. She really wished that she could have had something like this when she'd first had the Neko-ken dreams, and making this kid's life easier was at least a big part of what she wanted to do before she got out of here.

From the way Setsuna had described what had happened to her while Ranma slept, or at least what she could understand of it, Saffron knew that this place was a different world, one where everything had gone, as far as Setsuna could tell, the same way as it had in Ranma's until the older pigtailed martial artist had landed in the pit with his younger self.

This meant that there were at least a few things that were going to happen that Saffron would like to stop, at least to know that somewhere, she'd managed to do something about things that she knew were beyond her control back home.

Of course, since the Neko-ken had happened, it meant that Genma had left Ukyo crying in the dust already, but Saffron distantly wondered if she could hunt down the young Okonomiyaki chef before she wasted her entire life chasing after Ranma. She wasn't really sure what she'd do when she found her, but…

As the redhead was just beginning to think of something to do about her best friend, her train of thought was interrupted by movement from the boy sleeping in her lap. Looking down, she saw that he was looking up at her blearily.

"Mom?" The pigtailed martial artist asked, confused. The reaction from the redhead was instant, as she blinked, then her eyebrow twitched.

"I ain't anyone's mom, kid." She grunted, irritably, moving out from below the young boy, whose head promptly fell to his sparsely padded and tattered futon with a thump.

This apparently woke the young boy up a little, as he took a moment to survey his surroundings, then hopped to his feet. For a moment, he looked confused and a little worried, but then recognition seemed to come into his eyes. "Um, sorry." He mumbled. "Where's that guy, um, Saffron?"

The redhead sighed. "That's hard to explain." She answered, and then looked out of the makeshift tent. Much to her surprise, she saw that the sun was rising on the horizon, and the rain had tapered off to near nonexistence. Apparently, Saffron had been lost in thought for a long time, or had dozed off at some point without remembering it. "C'mon, we're going to break camp and head out right after breakfast." She ordered, stepping out into the clearing that the tent had been set up in.

Ranma nodded, following her out and looking confused. "Um, all right." He said, starting to take the tarp down as Saffron worked on starting a fire. The two worked in silence for several more moments, and Saffron was secretly glad that wilderness survival had been one of Genma's first priorities for lessons, or she would have been stuck doing all the work. A few minutes later, as Saffron was half way through boiling water for Ramen, Ranma returned, carrying a bundle that had been the tarp.

"Sorry, but one of the futons got wet." The boy said, frowning.

"Yeah, that's fine." The redhead said, poking the fire with a small branch. Ranma nodded, sitting down across from her and looking at her.

"So, um, who are you?" The pigtailed boy asked, curiously.

The redhead sighed, then produced a small tin cup, scooping some of the water from the pot. Luckily, it hadn't started boiling yet, and wasn't hot enough to burn her. Deciding that showing would be faster than telling, she dumped it over her head. "I'm Saffron." He said, adjusting the fit of his shirt.

Ranma blinked at the man who now sat across the fire from him, and then did so again. "H… how?" He stammered. His father had told him that there were many strange things in the world, but other than Uk-chan's Okonomiyaki fighting style, he hadn't really seen any yet.

"A curse I picked up in China." The older boy explained. "And for the record, I'm a guy."

"Oh." Ranma said, blinked several times, and then brightened up. "Okay, then since you're here, could we spar before we go?" When Saffron raised an eyebrow, the boy quickly continued. "Dad told me that I should always practice my moves in the morning, even if he's not around for some reason."

Saffron nodded, but then looked at the boy oddly. "All right, sure, but why didn't you ask me earlier?"

Ranma grinned, scratching the back of his neck in a way that Saffron recognized very well. "Well, um, I thought you were a girl, and I'm not supposed to spar with girls." He answered.

Saffron sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Forgot about that." He muttered, before looking up. "Bet yer ol' man told ya that?" Ranma nodded, so Saffron continued. "That rule's a little more complex than that, in my experience." He explained. "Girls're less likely ta be martial artists, so if ya just see one fightin or something, ya shouldn't just up 'n attack her. Ask first, is all."

"But Dad told me…" Ranma started, confused.

Saffron shrugged. "Yeah, I know. It's just I've met some girls who can fight half decent, 'n there was this old Amazon…" He stopped himself, and shook his head. "That ain't important right now. I'll spar with ya after we eat, if ya think you can move with your injuries."

Ranma nodded, and the two got back to eating, which both felt was far preferable to conversation.

HR.

Later that morning, Saffron and Ranma walked down the trail, small packs on each of their backs containing all of the camping supplies they owned. As they went, Ranma noticeably favored one side, but also looked very happy, for some reason. "I've never seen a lot of the moves in that style!" The boy chirped, happily. "How did you do that thing with the foot sweep?"

Saffron smirked. When he's sparred with the younger martial artist, he'd gotten a chance to see what level the boy was at, and since he was much better at carefully judging his strength than his father had been, was able to show the boy some tricks that were a bit above where he was at the moment. "You're a practitioner of Anything Goes. Ya know I can't just tell ya." The older boy said.

Ranma nodded. "So, you practice the style too? Is that where you know my father from?"

Saffron frowned for a moment, and then decided to go for the truth, or at least part of it. "Yeah. Yer pop taught me the Anything Goes before I started incorporating other styles of my own into it."

Ranma looked oddly at the other martial artist walking next to him. "I didn't know dad had any other students." He mumbled. "He always tells me that he's gunna train me to be his heir, and the best martial artist of my generation." He finished this off with a confident smirk.

"Yeah, but you've only been at it for a bit over a year, right?" Saffron said. "You ain't the best yet, and all Sensei should practice their technique on someone who can take it before teaching it to beginners."

"Hey, I can take it!" Ranma said, indignantly.

"Never said ya couldn't." Saffron replied, raising a placating hand.

The two dropped into silence for a moment, before Ranma spoke up again, more quietly. "Saffron-san?"

"Yeah?" The older boy asked, concerned. Even at six, he'd never used honorifics unless he was talking to someone he greatly respected, or being unusually serious with a stranger.

"Do… you know when Dad's going to come back?" Ranma asked.

Saffron shook his head. "Not really." He answered. "But if I know Genma Saotome, and believe me, I do, he'll show up eventually."

Ranma nodded, somewhat reassured, as the two came into sight of the outskirts of a small town.

HR.

Several days later, Saffron felt just a bit better about his situation than he had when he'd been cold, wet and female inside of a barely held together tent. This may have had something to do with the fact that he and Ranma were currently both sitting inside, as opposed to on top of, a passenger train that was headed at a pretty good clip towards Tokyo.

The past several days hadn't been terribly eventful, and Saffron had managed to find himself and Ranma some grunt work on a few of the farms on their path. As a result, they'd gotten enough money behind them to get better camping gear, and eventually a set of J-rail tickets to Tokyo.

As Saffron relaxed in his seat, which was far too comfortable to really be healthy, Ranma bounced excitedly in his own, peering out the window as the scenery sped past. "This is so cool!" The young boy exclaimed, excitedly.

Saffron suppressed a grin, remembering his own reaction to his first train ride. It hadn't been quite so exuberant, but that may have had something to do with the fact that he'd taken it when he was sixteen. His father wasn't big on fast ways of transportation, and generally insisted that they walk everywhere, in order to build character …or, rather, he insisted that Ranma walk everywhere. During the later years of the training trip, the old man had liked to separate from the boy for a while, claiming to need to make some preparations, and Saffron suspected that he'd hitched a ride on a few trains.

"Glad yer enjoyin yourself." The older boy said, smirking.

"So, you really know where Mom is?" Ranma asked, stopping his bouncing for a moment to look intently at the other martial artist.

"A little late ta ask now, isn't it?" Saffron asked. "Yeah, I know where she is."

Ranma nodded, trying to relax into his own seat. As he did, he continued to watch the scenery out the window. It had given way a while ago from countryside to the views of the inner city, and he was starting to recognize a few major landmarks from around his childhood home. Granted, things had started to get a bit hard to remember, especially since a few days ago and the Neko-ken. It was like every time he tried to think of something that had happened before that event, a haze obscured it just a little bit.

"You all right, kid?" Saffron asked, jolting Ranma out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine." The pigtailed martial artist said, just as the train started to slow.

"This is our stop." The older boy said, standing and grabbing his backpack. "You ready ta go?"

Ranma nodded quickly, following Saffron off of the train and into Tokyo.

HR.

Later that afternoon, two martial artists stood in front of a cozy looking two story house. Both had seen it before, yet to the older of the two the place seemed a lot nicer than he remembered. Of course, this time it wasn't in a half-way demolished state due to the efforts of a murder of fiancees.

Shrugging, the two walked up the front path and knocked. Within moments, footsteps were heard, and the door swung open to reveal an auburn haired woman dressed in a formal Kimono. In the brief moment that she was standing there and blinking at the two martial artists, Saffron appraised her. She looked much the same as she had when he'd seen her just under a week before, though her face was much less aged. She had never really had wrinkles, but there had been a heaviness to her expression, as if she'd seen great sadness or loneliness.

"Hello, can I help you?" Nodoka Saotome asked, smiling politely.

Before Saffron could say anything, Ranma spoke up. "Mom!" He called, rushing forward and grabbing the woman around the waist.

"Ranma?" Nodoka asked, surprised, though her face split into a beaming smile. "What are you doing home?"

"Um," Saffron said, deciding to enter the conversation at this point, "His pop had ta do somethin and he needs some time to recover from a technique, so I figured I'd bring him here."

Nodoka looked up from her son, noticing the newcomer for the first time. For a moment, her eyes locked onto his and she looked puzzled. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you." She said, and looked as if she really wanted to bow in greeting, though Ranma's hug stopped her from doing so. "And you are?"

"I'm Saffron, I used ta train with Genma." The older boy said, looking nervous.

Nodoka frowned. She'd never known anyone by that name, and she knew most of Genma's old training partners. Also, this boy looked a few years too young to have traveled with her husband. Still, she wanted to be a polite host, and questioning his story wouldn't exactly be polite. "Well, Saffron-san, would you like to come in for tea?"

"Um, no thanks. It's all right." Saffron said, nervously. He could see that Ranma was pretty eager to talk with his mother, and he'd noticed the strange look she'd shot him. The danger sense that he'd had for most of his life, and that had been honed during his time in Nerima, was telling him to get the heck away before Nodoka figured something out, or things could get complicated.

"Hey, you haven't showed me those techniques of yours yet!" Ranma complained, taking his eyes away from his mother for a moment, but Saffron was already gone.

"Hmm, he was certainly a bit rude." Nodoka said, bringing a hand to her chin. Still, he had brought her son back to her. "Come on Ranma, why don't you tell me how the past year has been while we wait for your father?"

Ranma nodded cheerfully, following his mother into the house.

HR.

Hopping from roof to roof, Saffron vaguely wondered why he'd taken off so quickly. Granted, his mother had looked as if she had noticed something about him, but it wasn't like she'd guess the truth. Plus, now that he was gone, he had no idea what to do for the moment.

He'd never been one to think things out terribly well, and now was no exception. He was probably going to stick around until Genma showed up, to warn the old man against some of his dumber ideas, but other than that he was stumped.

Stopping at the edge of one roof before he aimlessly started to move again, the martial artist realized that his almost Ryoga-esque wanderings had carried him somewhere familiar. He was about half a block away from Furinkan, on the roof of Dr. Tofu's clinic. Jumping to the ground, he noticed that the clinic wasn't there at the moment, replaced by a small store that sold flowers.

Turning away, he remembered that Akane had told him that Dr. Tofu had arrived when she was around eight, around the same time that her mother had died. As that thought went through his head, the pigtailed martial artist stiffened. He knew something else he could do here, and cursed himself for being a moron. He wasn't the only person who hadn't had the past ten years easy, and given that he'd known the Tendos for a long time, he really should have thought of them.

Jumping to the roof again, the pigtailed time traveler now had a destination. He got there within minutes. After all, he'd been running through this district, at various speeds and with various people trying to kill him, for the better part of two years.

Coming to a stop, the pigtailed martial artist perched on the roof of the house next to the Dojo, studying the place. Even though he wasn't normally one to think things through, he'd already been through one spectacularly bad first impression with the Tendo family, and didn't want to make it two for two. He was pretty sure that someone randomly babbling about Mrs. Tendo's death would likely get him tossed out, unless he did something to get them to listen to him.

As his eyes drifted over the place, the martial artist didn't see much that surprised him. The grounds hadn't seen nearly as much battle damage, and the rocks at the edge of the Koi pond were a little differently placed, but otherwise it was just like he was coming home from school. There was only one difference that he could see, and that was the sign board hanging next to the front gate, which now carried a set of class times along with the school's name, and the request that challengers knock at the rear door.

As he read that, the martial artist couldn't help but frown, recalling how many of his challengers had just flat out ignored that damned thing. Still, he thought it gave him an idea.

HR.

Soun Tendo hummed to himself quietly as he swept the stone steps that lead to the entrance to his family home. There weren't any classes today, and on occasion he liked to do this as it relaxed him quite a bit. For a moment, he thought he felt a presence nearby, one that was rather powerful, but when he turned his head in its direction he felt nothing. "Hmm, that's strange." He muttered, walking to the doorway and leaning his broom against it.

Moments later, his previous feeling was proven correct, as the ringing of the challenger bell at the rear gate resounded through the compound. Soun let the relaxing lethargy that had taken him at the beauty of the day fade, straightening the brown fighting gi that he habitually wore and heading for the gate.

As he got there, he saw his wife, Midori, bowing towards a figure on the other side of the gate. "Hello, sir. Are you here to challenge the Dojo?" She asked, politely as Soun came up behind her.

For some odd reason, the boy looked at his wife in a near state of shock. "Something wrong, son?" The Dojo's master asked.

"Um, nothing." The boy said, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'm here to challenge the Dojo, but I've got a kinda odd set of conditions."

Soun raised an eyebrow, and nodded to the boy. "Then please, come in."

Ranma bowed to both adults, and did his damnedest to be polite. For a second, he'd gaped at the woman who'd answered the door, because she had looked amazingly like Akane, if she dressed a bit more like Kasumi.

As the three headed for the house, the woman spoke up. "I'm curious, what are your terms?" She asked.

Ranma shrugged. "Well, I've got somethin I need ta tell both of ya, and I don't want ya interrupting 'till I'm done." He explained.

"And you need to challenge for this right because…" Soun asked, confused.

"Because, well, it's gunna sound real weird, 'n I don't wanna get kicked out before I can finish." Ranma said, shamefaced.

Both older people shared a look, before Soun continued. "And your stake in this match will be?" He asked, very businesslike.

Ranma furrowed his brow for a moment. He knew that he would have to put something of at least some value up against his request, that was how a dojo challenge worked. Usually, it was the labor of the challenger, to help around the place for a short time, or a monetary reward. "Well, I've got some techniques ya could be interested in." he offered. "I can teach you the basics of how to use Chi as a projectile."

The Moko Takabisha was one of his more powerful techniques, yes, but it was also one of the very few that he had created himself, with no external input, and that he could therefore teach with no one else's permission.

Soun stopped, stiffening, one foot stepping into the Dojo, and turned to Ranma slowly. "Y… you know a technique like that?" He asked, visibly shaken. Ranma heard him mutter something about the master, but shrugged it off, knowing full well who he was talking about.

"Yeah. I can't use it in a match inside a Dojo, at least not one like this, 'cuz it does too much property damage, but I know it." The younger martial artist explained, then cupped one hand. Within seconds, a small ball of blue energy formed there, floating several centimeters up.

Soun gasped, and then nodded shakily. "That… is acceptable." He said, slowly, then looked to his wife. "Midori, could you go back to the house and prepare the first-aid kit?"

The blue-black haired woman nodded, leaving the two martial artists for the moment, and coming back a moment later with the kit, which she set next to the door before proceeding into the fighting hall. Both combatants followed her, taking up positions on either side.

"The stakes are set and understood?" The woman called out in a calm, clear voice. When both men nodded, she continued, "The match will continue until one of you forfeits or is incapacitated, according to my judgement. Lethal blows are prohibited." After saying that, rather than raising her hand, Mrs. Tendo reached into her Kimono top, and produced a small pistol. Ranma's eyes widened, until she fired it upward, revealing that it only contained blanks, and yelled "Begin!"

Ranma narrowed his eyes, then smirked. He would never have expected Soun to use as cheap a trick as that to surprise his opponent, but then, he was a practitioner of Anything Goes. As the Tendo patriarch moved forward quickly, the pigtailed martial artist did so as well, though he also drifted slightly to the right. When the two passed, Ranma brought up his left leg to drive the air out of the other's lungs, but was surprised as he felt it knocked out of his own as well. Turning his eyes back to himself, he saw the end of a staff buried in his stomach.

Reacting quickly, the martial artist grabbed the weapon, preparatory to taking it from Soun, when it disappeared in a flash of chi. More than that, the energy hadn't been restrained, and the younger man felt small burns appearing on his hands where he'd touched it.

"You're a lot better than I thought." He admitted, wincing as he cracked his knuckles. Soun merely nodded, and the two went in for another charge. This time, Ranma went for a direct, frontal assault, testing the older man's defenses. They were quite good, especially when the staff seemed to materialize in his hands to help with blocking again, but Ranma quickly countered that by increasing his speed until he was hammering away at almost twice the speed Soun could manage.

The old man grimaced in pain as another of his opponent's hits connected, and then the grimace seemed to twist, getting much more distorted as the face it was on grew into a full demon head. Despite his exposure in the past, this caused Ranma to flinch and step back, allowing the other to bring the staff around in a hard blow to his side. Rolling with the attack, the pigtailed boy came up wincing from what felt like a bruised rib, but he saw that Soun was a lot worse off.

Many attacks had connected with the mustached man's body, and small bruises were already beginning to show from the earliest ones. "All right," He grunted, "It's time for me to stop playing, I see." Ranma wondered what the gi clad martial artist had meant by that, until Soun's staff reformed, a long, flat blade forming on its end. Ranma recognized the weapon as a Naginata, the same one the Tendo patriarch used whenever he donned that weird Samurai armor to fight Happosai.

Within moments, the taller man charged, flowing into a blistering series of attacks with the bladed weapon that Ranma had to avoid. This fight was getting serious, which was odd, given he was fighting Soun Tendo, the man agreed by most Nerimans to have less spine than an invertebrate.

Deciding that this was getting just plain ridiculous, the pigtailed martial artist moved in, jumping onto the blade and riding it as Soun swung it back towards himself. As he did this, he raised one leg for a hard stomp onto the master's face. To his surprise, Soun actually managed to get one arm free to block, and the Naginata became a very unstable platform, but physics, for once, would not be denied and all of Ranma's weight came down on Soun's head with a tremendous crash.

The Tendo patriarch teetered for a moment, swaying on his feet, before falling to the floor with a loud thud as Ranma landed next to him, panting slightly. Looking down nervously, he noted that Soun was laying with a stupefied look on his face. "You okay Tendo-san?" He asked, worriedly.

Within a few moments, Mrs. Tendo walked up to the two, bending down and checking her husband's vital signs. "He's still conscious, but you definitely stunned him." She said. "You've won this match."

Ranma nodded, and offered a hand to help carry his dazed opponent into the house.

HR.

It took Soun about ten minutes to recover, during which time Ranma sat in the Tendos' tea room, looking around and noting that there were a few less pictures on the walls. Across from him sat Mrs. Tendo, who was looking at him inscrutably. After her husband joined her, an ice pack held to his head, the man cleared his throat. "So, young man, what is it you would like to tell us? And… what is your name?"

The boy stopped for a moment, thinking, and then decided to be blunt. "I'm callin myself Saffron, but that ain't my real name. I'm Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes martial arts."

"Saotome?" Soun asked, then winced. "Ranma, that's Genma's boy, isn't it? But he's… only six, I believe."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, why I said this'd be hard to believe." He answered. "Basically, about a week ago, I woke up in the middle of a trainin technique I'd gone through about ten years ago. A while after that, I found out from someone who apparently knows that I've traveled back in time, sorta."

"I suddenly understand why you challenged my husband to a duel in order to keep us from throwing you out." Mrs. Tendo said, her formerly rather bemused behavior suddenly turning a bit more irritated.

"Yeah, figured you'd react like that." Ranma said, and then thought for a few more seconds. "Didn't really wanna do this, but here." He said, taking his wallet from his back pocket. Flipping it open, he withdrew a small white Polaroid image, bought off of Nabiki for 200 yen last Christmas. He'd never admitted to anyone, especially is father, that he had the thing, but now it apparently had a use to serve. "Take a look at this." He stated, handing the image over.

Soun took the picture, and noted that it was a group shot of four girls, standing in front of a tall man who he recognized. The man looked rather sad, as if he were going to burst out crying, but it was definitely his face. The thing that caught his attention, however, were the girls. One of them, a short redhead with her hair in a similar pigtail to the boy's and a green dress, was unfamiliar, but the other three… "Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi?" He asked, surprised.

Mrs. Tendo took the image from her husband, and then her eyes widened. "Um… why's there a Panda in the background?" She finally asked, latching onto something else and trying to deny that she was seeing an image of her daughters all grown up.

"Um, the Panda's a long story." Saffron said, nervously. "Now, ya gunna hear me out?"

"I beleave that was agreed upon for if you won." Mr. Tendo said, simply, though now he was looking at Ranma worriedly. He had noticed something about the image, but didn't want to say anything, just in case he was wrong.

"Well, I'm here 'cuz I thought I could warn ya. I'm not sure how, other than that it was some sort of disease that came on pretty fast, but Mrs. Tendo…"

He trailed off, causing the woman in question to look up. "Yes?" She asked, now shocked herself.

"You die in about a year." Ranma blurted out, not sure how to lessen the impact. "I thought if I told ya, you could do somethin about it, or the warning'd help ya cope, or… something." He looked down, unsure what had really been his reason for doing this.

"Help us cope?" Soun asked, concerned.

Ranma nodded. "Mr. Tendo, after your wife died, ya pretty well fell apart. Ya were always cryin, 'n stuff, and your art… Well, let's just say that if ya fought now the way I remember you fighting, I woulda won in about five seconds. As for Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi, I dunno, but they definitely took it hard."

Both Tendo parents sat, looking at the strange boy who had entered their house, and unsure of what to say to him. Finally, Mrs. Tendo said, "Why?"

Ranma shrugged. "Like I said, I ain't really sure. Felt like the right thing ta do, I guess… Kasumi talked about how ya died once, said if the doctors'd known earlier they could maybe have done somethin."

"Boy, if this is a joke…" The woman started, now almost hysterical, especially considering how seriously Saffron had delivered the news.

"I swear on my honor as a student of Anythin Goes, I'm telling the truth." Ranma said, formally.

It was at about that time that Soun nodded, surprising his wife. "I see." He said, finally. "We will try and use your information to improve the way things turn out."

Saffron nodded, and then rose. "I… um, I'd better get goin." He said, quickly, and turned. Someone called after him, but he ignored them as he bounded up towards the rooftops.

Unseen by anyone there, a small girl stood at the door to her family room, having left school suffering a stomach ache.

HR.

Landing in front of the Tendo Dojo, Saffron felt like five different kinds of idiot. He hadn't thought things through, as per usual, and ended up telling Mrs. Tendo that she had a year to live, without being at all helpful in telling her how to survive. He just felt like such an..

"You idiot!" Yeah, that was about right. Saffron thought, as he was hit over the head by a giant mallet.

END.

Nabiki(Older): Okay folks, now taking bets! Who was the wielder of the mighty mallet?

Weebee: Well, there it is, folks. And no, Nabiki wasn't taking a vote. I already know who it is.

Name Note:Midori = Green, as far as I understood it. Given Takahashi's punny sense for names, I felt that someone who looked like a cross between Akane and Kasumi should have a color themed name like Akane, but the complete reverse. Meh.

Again, Please R&R!


	3. Chapter 2: That Once Went Right?

Warning: This chapter is mostly setup for the next. I'm sorry to say it may not be all that exciting, but it is needed.

Congratulations to Aoirann and TJG, who guessed the wielder of the super hammer of idiot bashing(TM.)

Chapter 2, that once went... right?

The denizens of Nerima had seen, even before the coming of the redhead and her panda, quite a few odd things over their lifetimes. In fact, most of those who were around now had seen Soun Tendo and Genma Saotome's antics under their old, perverted master. As a result, it was no surprise to them when they saw an irritated looking young woman dragging a man in a set of red Chinese style clothes down the street. Basically, all they wondered was whether he deserved the beating he'd quite obviously taken or not.

A few minutes of annoyed grunting later, the young woman made her way to a street that bordered the canal that ran through the middle of the district, and lifted the unconscious boy, pitching him over the fence. About three seconds later, she smirked in satisfaction as she heard several loud splashes. "Hey, what'd ya do that for?!" An Indignant voice called, and a red haired girl in the same clothes as the boy came rocketing over the fence, her clothes dripping. "Great, and I just got these yesterday." She muttered, tugging at the red shirt.

"Your clothes are the last thing you should be worried about, Saotome!" The girl said, still looking irritated. It was at about that time that the redhead noticed her, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

The other looked younger than she did, but only by a couple of years, with long black hair that flowed down her back, and a set of odd looking markings on her face. "Okay, what'd me or my ol' man do ta get me smacked in the back 'o the head with a mallet?" The pigtailed martial artist grumbled, irritably.

"What did you do?" The dark haired girl asked, disbelieving. "You know perfectly well what you've done, and it's going to cause me weeks of paperwork!"

The one who called herself Saffron blinked. "Huh?" She asked.

"I mean how you're going around, changing the future!" The other girl yelled, and then blushed as she noticed that several nearby people had turned their heads to look. "Look, this place is too public, we're going to a restaurant to talk." Not noticing that the residents of Nerima had just shrugged and gone on with their lives after hearing something about possible time travel, the girl grabbed Saffron by the hand and started pulling.

"Yeash." The redhead muttered, hopefully too quietly for the other to hear. "First she hits me with a mallet, now we're goin ta get lunch?"

HR.

Ten minutes later, the two were sitting at a table outside of the small ice cream shop in the middle of Nerima, and the black haired girl was scowling at Saffron, yet again. "That was disgusting, you know that?" She grumbled.

"What? Ya insisted I buy ya some ice cream, and I'm low on money." The martial artist justified, looking back into the restaurant and waving at the stupidly grinning counter boy. "Besides, it ain't like he minds bein flirted with, and he knows it ain't gunna go any further."

The black haired girl glared some more, before being distracted by the chocolate sundae before her and starting to dig in. Across from her, Saffron crossed her arms, impatiently waiting for the other to come up for air. About a minute later, she was still waiting, and starting to wonder if this girl knew the Anything Goes Eating Technique, since she hadn't come up for air. Losing patience, she spoke up. "So, ya gunna tell me why I bought you food, and who the hell ya are?"

The girl looked up, ice cream dripping from her chin, and then blushed. Quickly wiping the dessert off, she cleared her throat. "I am Skuld, Goddess of the future, and do you know the impact you've made on this timeline?" She asked, indignantly.

Saffron shrugged, not really terribly surprised that she was talking to a goddess, and answered the girl's question. "Not really, no." She admitted, honestly. "I got my younger self, I assume ya know who I am, home ta see his mom, 'n I'm planning to warn pops of some of his mistakes when he shows up. Other than that…" She stopped for a moment, and her eyes widened. "Hey, my interference with the Tendos, it… it didn't make things worse, did it?"

Skuld blinked. "The Tendos?" She asked, then remembered where she'd found the errant time traveler. Suddenly, she held her hands out in mid-air, and a keypad and screen materialized in front of her, several lines of text scrolling by, both far too rapidly for Saffron to read and in a completely different language. For a moment, she allowed herself to smile. "Actually, you did something right. At least for the moment, the Tendo family is better off than when you came."

Saffron sighed in relief, and was about to ask what had happened, when she frowned. "Okay, so then what'd I do ta get hit in the head with a mallet?"

Skuld's eyebrows twitched, and she was about to start another irritated yelling fit, when she caught herself. For a moment, the furious face of her older sister burst into her mind, and she shuddered, shaking that image off. "Look, I'm sorry about that." She finally said. "I'm just not having a good month." Rubbing her forehead, she continued. "You really have no idea what you've done, do you?"

At Saffron's blank look, the goddess of the future sighed. "Basically, what happened is that you destabilized a chain of events that, in the end, would have done a lot of good. In stopping Ranma Saotome from going on his training trip, several people's lives have been affected."

Saffron blinked. "Huh? I never stopped him from goin." She objected. "Once the ol' man skulks back 'round and picks him up, he'll continue like it was never interrupted."

Skuld winced, not quite wanting to deal with that bombshell at the moment. "Genma isn't going to come and get him." She explained, flatly. Seeing Saffron's mouth opening to start throwing questions at her, she continued. "For one, you've stuck the boy in a place where Genma's terrified to go anywhere near. Also, something happened during the Neko-Ken training…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "He won't be back for a good long time, and especially not at Nodoka Saotome's house."

"Okay, fine." Saffron said, trying not to think about what implications that last statement had about her father's state of health. "So, the kid gets raised by Mom, and ends up bein something close to normal. I don't see any problems."

Skuld grimaced, and wondered if it would really be all that bad to hit this idiot over the head with her mallet. "Ranma, like I said, you have an impact on many people." She started, slowly. "For example, take the Tendos. Without you there, at least one of them would likely be married to Picolet Chardin, and Akane would have been killed by the Orochi when she tried to rescue Shinosuke. You do know that ALL of their problems weren't of your doing, correct?"

The pigtailed martial artist went pale, having not really thought about that. "But, I thought you said the Tendos'd be better off now?" She asked, confused.

"For the most part, they will. That doesn't mean there won't be disasters in future." Skuld explained. "And the Tendos aren't all of it, but I'm not really allowed to tell you the other results."

Saffron frowned, then closed her eyes in thought for a moment. "So, um, it's that pebble and landslide thing?" She asked. At Skuld's uncomprehending look, she continued. "Y'know, where a small rock being knocked loose can cause half a mountain to come down, 'n the training trip was the rock."

"Yes, that actually works well." Skuld explained, then looked at the redhead oddly. "But, how did you come up with something like that?"

Saffron scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably. "Nabiki mentioned it once, after I'd asked why the hell this sorta thing always happened ta me. But, if that's the case, then I guess I've screwed it up pretty bad, huh?"

Skuld nodded. "Yes, now things will never quite go the way they did." She replied, "But there is a way to mitigate the damage to the future."

"Hmm?" Saffron asked, blinking at the other in surprise.

"It's simple, actually." Skuld said. "For example, in order to fulfill the conditions for saving Akane from the Orochi, Ranma Saotome has to be at a certain skill level, and have at least some relationship with Akane Tendo."

Saffron looked horrified, as she realized where the black haired girl was going. "Ya don't mean ya want me to train him." She muttered.

Skuld nodded.

"But, I can't put him through half the stuff I got put through as a kid!" Saffron objected, hotly. "I mean, a lot 'o it's illegal, and, I just couldn't do it to a kid, especially not to myself."

"Yes," Skuld said. "But quite frankly, at the moment, the world as a whole is slightly worse off than it would have been if you'd gone on the trip, and Akane Tendo isn't the only person who will die." She knew that she was playing dirty, but the Yggdrasil had reported that there were VERY few Sensei capable of getting Ranma trained in time while following Genma's schedule well enough, and some of the results were…

For a moment, a view of what would happen if Ranma didn't become rivals with that Hibiki boy, his rage and depression unfocussed and dangerous to all around him, flashed through her mind and she felt as if she was going to throw up her lunch. Seeing that Saffron was still looking stubborn, she sighed. "I can't help you enough to stop this without replicating the original timeline to some degree," She explained, "But I can tell you exactly what has to be done. Not all of Genma's idiocies have to be repeated."

"…Yeah." Saffron muttered, looking down. "I guess, since I caused this, I'm sorta honor bound ta fix it, huh?" Then, softly, she mumbled "I was only tryin ta make things work out better."

Skuld sighed, now truly regretting having clubbed this person in the head earlier, especially since she'd recently done some things that she really wanted to take back, and reached out to take her hand. "I'm sorry I have to ask this of you, but heaven isn't allowed to interfere more directly than this, for fear of giving hell the same amount of leeway."

"Yeah, figured as much." Saffron said. "Ya got that list on ya? I'll wanna see it before I really decide."

Skuld nodded, raising her hands and typing in mid-air again, before a small sheet of paper materialized. Handing it over, she got up. "I shouldn't have to contact you again any time soon." She said. "If you decline this responsibility, I… won't think less of you."

Saffron nodded, studying the paper that now rested on the table in front of her, and started to chuckle. "Well, I guess even if the Kami don't hate me, irony's a bitch." She muttered, picking it up and slipping it into her wallet.

HR.

About two and a half hours later, Saffron sat under a bridge. He'd spent quite a bit of time under this bridge in the past, usually to hide from everyone while he tried to work something out. Now, there was no one to hide from, but definitely something to work out. Sighing, he looked down at the crumpled list in his hands. A lot of what was written there he'd rather not do, especially since it had caused a lot of the trouble in his life, but there were other things that weren't mentioned at all.

It was still possible to give the kid a better childhood than he'd had, especially since he knew which of Genma's techniques had worked, which had eventually gotten refined, and which were just plain useless. Standing up, he looked at the sky and had to laugh. It could only be in his life that something this stupid could happen. Clenching the hand with the note in it, he frowned down at the water of the canal, and then jumped to its edge, headed for Nodoka Saotome's home.

It only took him about five minutes to make the trip, and each time he did so it amazed him that he'd been living so close to her the entire time he'd been in Nerima, and had forgotten where she lived. Landing casually on the walk in front of the door, he raised his hand and knocked. There were several moments of silent activity from inside, before Nodoka opened the door, smiling. "Oh, Saffron-san." She greeted, surprised.

"Can I come in?" He asked, nervously. Nodoka didn't object, simply bowing, and the young martial artist stepped into the house, shucking off his shoes for a pair of house slippers, and walking into the living room. As he entered, he saw Ranma sitting at the low table, fidgeting with his chopsticks and staring hungrily at a plate of food.

Saffron noticed, with a slight snicker, that the boy had already stolen some small bits of the meal, ensuring that his mother wouldn't notice. "Saffron-san, I'm afraid I don't have anything prepared for you, but you may have some of my meal." Nodoka offered, causing the larger boy to jump and the smaller one to look up at him curiously.

"You're back?" Ranma asked, excitedly. "Did you come to show me those techniques of yours again?"

Saffron shook his head, but had to smirk at Ranma's one track mind, and distantly wondered if he acted like that when he had a new move to learn. "Actually, I'm here ta talk to yer mom first." He answered turning and noting that Nodoka had raised an eyebrow.

Nodoka nodded. "Shall I make some tea for the discussion?" She asked, but Saffron shook his head.

"Actually, I gotta talk to ya without Ranma round." The older martial artist said, awkwardly. Nodoka seemed to frown at this, but then nodded, and gestured for Saffron to follow her as she headed for the stairs.

Seeing her son's downcast expression, the woman continued, "Ranma, why don't you start your lunch? I will join you soon."

Ranma nodded, digging into the food eagerly, and the two adults left the room.

HR.

Once Nodoka and Saffron reached the top of the stairs, the older woman lead the way into the master bedroom, closing the door slowly, and turning an angry glare on the man that caused him to step back about a foot. "What has been done to my son?" She asked, in a low and dangerous voice.

"Wh… what do you mean?" Saffron asked, stepping back slightly in shock.

Nodoka noted the man's obvious confusion, but didn't lessen her glare as she paced over to the bed, and sat down on it heavily. "When Ranma entered the house, our cat was laying on the couch." She carefully noted as the martial artist flinched, looking around warily, before continuing. "Ranma was afraid of the animal, and refused to come in until I put him out in the back yard. When I asked him how this had happened, he only said 'Neko-ken,' and shuddered when I asked for further explanation."

Saffron sighed, rubbing his forehead. He hadn't expected this to happen when he'd dropped Ranma off, but then again, he hadn't remembered that his family had once had a cat. "It's hard to explain, Saotome-san." He started, but at a sharp glare from Nodoka, he continued. "The Neko-ken is a technique where you take your prospective student, wrap him in fish products, and drop him into a pit full of starved cats. This is done until the trainee is killed, or learns the Neko-ken, an unbeatable berserker technique that gives the trainee the strength and abilities of a cat." By this point, the pigtailed martial artist's eyes were distant, and he was speaking in a flat monotone to avoid showing any emotion.

Nodoka seemed to notice this, and narrowed her eyes. "Did you do this to my son?" She asked, evenly.

This seemed to snap Saffron out of his trance state, and he fliched violently. "Look, I'd never put anyone through that damned technique!" He snapped, being far harsher than he intended. "It screws ya up for the rest of your life, and the nightmares you get from it ain't exactly pretty."

Nodoka nodded, seeing the sincerity in Saffron's eyes, then her own widened. "You were trained in it?"

"Yeah." The boy admitted, then shook his head. "Look, that ain't why I need ta talk to you, actually."

"You tell me that my son's been put through a technique like that, and then you say that there's something more important to talk about?" Nodoka asked, unbelieving.

"Not really more important, but the Neko-ken's been done, 'n aside from letin his wounds heal, there's not much else that can be done about it." Saffron returned, brutally honestly. Steeling himself, he rode out the indignant look that Nodoka gave him, having to remind himself constantly that she wasn't really his mother, but a sort of copy, or alternate version, just like the boy enjoying his lunch downstairs wasn't actually him.

"Why I'm here is 'cuz I found out that Genma's not likely ta be back any time soon, and I made a promise ta train Ranma in his father's absence." The martial artist pushed on, and then braced for the explosion.

"You what?!" Nodoka asked, the volume of her shout causing Saffron to wince, and making him note that he was right about the explosion. "First my baby somehow gets trained in this… Neko-ken technique, and now you want me to allow you to take him away for more dangerous training like it?"

At this particular moment, Saffron was very grateful that Nodoka didn't carry her Katana everywhere, as he was sure she would be waving it at him if she did. "Nothing quite as stupid as that, Saotome-san." He said, trying to be as respectful as he could, now that he'd pissed her off. "I promised to make the boy the best practitioner of Genma's style that I could if he ever got incapacitated." Saffron was only half-lying here, so he hoped the older woman wouldn't notice his nervousness. "The only thing that could make me give up on this is if the boy told me, straight out, that he didn't want to do it, and yeah, that means you forbidding it ain't gunna stop me."

"…what?" Nodoka asked, her face darkening with rage.

Saffron shrugged. "That's why I warned ya before asking him. If ya tell Ranma you don't want him goin, he probably won't go." Saffron said, bluntly. "But his training is very important for the honor and future of Genma's school, and mine."

"I… see." Nodoka said, the word honor seeming to bring her back to a calmer state. "…if I don't forbid him from going, how do you think Ranma would react?" She asked, timidly.

"He'd agree." Saffron said, confidently. "Anything Goes is already an important part of his life, and he'll wanna learn it."

Nodoka nodded, then raised her head to meet Saffron's eyes directly. "I will allow Ranma to leave with you if he wishes," She started, but before Saffron could sigh in relief, she continued. "In exchange, you will give me your word of honor that you'll take care of him, and you will keep in contact with me."

Saffron blinked at the woman, surprised. "That's… it?" He asked, confused.

Nodoka shook her head. "I am unsure why, but I trust your word." She said, then narrowed her eyes. "Do not disappoint that trust."

Saffron bowed to the woman, and looking up, said "I swear on my art… and my life." As the woman who was an almost exact duplicate of his mother looked into his eyes, the pigtailed martial artist realized that she took that vow very seriously, but he truthfully wouldn't want it any other way.

"You should probably go down stairs and talk to Ranma." Nodoka said, her voice quavering slightly.

"Um, yeah…" Saffron said, looking away. Abruptly, he turned back to her. "Um, y'know, Ranma's injuries'll take a while to heal, and I've got some preparations to make."

"Hmm?" Nodoka asked, confused.

"Well, it'd be better if he stayed in a warm, dry house than a tent." Saffron clarified.

"Yes, I suppose it would be best." She replied, smiling happily.

END.

Well, hope you don't mind the fillerishness. Still, some odd questions. Is Nodoka figuring things out? And precisely what's up with Skuld?

R&R!


	4. Chapter 3: The Very Best

Note: Crap, short chapter. Should have been part of last chapter. Wasn't.

Enjoy anyways, I hope.

Chapter 3, The Very Best.

Nodoka Saotome frowned to herself as the man who had brought her son back to her, and was now preparing to take him away, left her home. He'd said that he needed to get some supplies which he would need whether Ranma was going with him or not, and that he had a place to stay for the next few days. Really, in spite of being rather rough around the edges, the young man was reasonably nice… other than the fact that he was going to take Ranma away again.

Sighing, the woman turned from the door, walking into the living room where Ranma had finished his meal, and was laying on the couch. She sat in a chair nearby, just observing her son for a moment, before he looked up. "Is something wrong, Mom?"

Nodoka frowned, trying to think of what to say to the boy. Something was wrong, but it wasn't something she wanted to burden him with, at least not at the moment. "No, nothing really." She finally said. He nodded, rolling off the couch and to a standing position, and was about to leave the room when she spoke up again. "Ranma? You know your training…"

"Yeah." The boy said, slowly. "I already told you most of what happened, do you wanna hear something again?"

"No, it's not that." She said, and then decided to bite the bullet. "How do you feel about it?"

The boy looked at her, confused. "How do I feel about it?" he asked. "It's training. It's what I gotta do to become the best martial artist, like Pop wants."

Nodoka nodded, troubled. "And do you want it?" She asked. "What do you want?"

Ranma blinked at her, now even more confused. "I wanna make Pop and you proud, and I wanna learn new moves, and… maybe go make some new friends." He said, gaining more confidence as he continued. "I'm really good at the art for my age, at least that's what all those guys at the Dojos said, and I made one good friend on the trip already."

"Really?" Nodoka asked, her curiosity perked already. "Who was that?"

"I didn't tell you about Ukyo?" Ranma asked, surprised. "He's a guy I met down near Okinawa. His dad ran this cart, and…" With that, the small boy was off, speaking about his many fights with the other martial artist, and Nodoka listened intently.

HR.

Saffron smiled as he thought over the pile of equipment he had gotten together. Some of it he'd raided from Nodoka's stash of Genma's training things, which he didn't really feel guilty for taking, and the rest had been purchased. He'd ended up having to go find some gullible underground fighters to get the cash, and that particular flow would likely dry up after what he'd done, but he'd only needed the large infusion of money once.

Now, he had a set of camping and training equipment that was, quite frankly, better than what they'd had on the original trip, plus a lot of canned food and medical supplies. In addition, he'd decided to re-tie his pigtail into a loose ponytail, in order to somewhat reduce his obvious resemblance to his younger self. He hadn't really been interacting with anyone other than shop keepers and punks in the meantime, but he'd been doing a lot of thinking, especially given what he had to do both for his promise to Nodoka and the list of tasks in his pocket.

Keeping that promise to write her and let Ranma do the same without lying was probably going to get him screamed at for even the majority of his own training ideas, but it really couldn't be helped in order to get the boy up to his own level in time. It had taken a lot of pain, injury and stupidly dangerous risks, and it would likely take the same again, but with fewer of the life threatening ideas.

Squaring his shoulders, the man walked forward, up the path in front of the Saotome home. It still surprised him that the place was so well maintained, as it had looked run down, and there had been a lot fewer little embellishments when he'd seen it last, even before the destruction. Then again, he supposed Nodoka had been forced to sell a lot to pay the bills, and distantly wondered if he could do anything about that.

Knocking on the door, he heard the sound of small feet running along the floor, and then Ranma opened it. Seeing the older man, the boy grinned. "Saffron-san?" He asked, excited.

"Yeah, I'm here." Saffron said. "Can I come in?"

Ranma quickly gestured that the other martial artist could enter, and Saffron shucked off his backpack, dropping it to the floor next to the door with a thump. Ranma studied the massive pack, and then grabbed it by one strap, trying to lift it and only succeeding in wobbling it slightly.

"Oh, Saffron-san." Nodoka's voice came, as the auburn haired woman entered the front hall, her face looking half way between inviting and anxious.

Saffron bowed, understanding the woman's expression, and smirked at Ranma. "I wouldn't try movin that. It took me ten years of strength trainin to handle a pack like that."

Ranma grumbled, but left the backpack alone, as he followed the two older people into the living room. When they had all been seated, and Nodoka had served tea around the table, the woman asked, "Saffron-san, you've finished your preparations?"

Saffron nodded. "Yeah, everything's all ready." He said, and turned towards Ranma, who was looking between the person who'd brought him here and his mother in a state of confusion. "Ranma, I got somethin to ask you, and it's pretty important." He said, looking squarely into the young boy's eyes. Ranma nodded, still looking confused, so Saffron continued.

"Your ol' man's been held up somewhere, and he's not gunna be able to train you for a while." The pony tailed man explained. "Like I said, I trained with him, and agreed to take over your training, as long as you agreed to go on the trip."

Ranma opened his mouth, preparatory to exclaiming that, of course he would go, but Saffron raised a hand to stop him. "Kid, you've gotta understand somethin." The older boy explained. "The last year, the ol' man's been teaching you stuff like survival skills, and the basic philosophy of the art. There was some physical training, but it gets a whole lot worse, and more painful, in the future."

Seeing Nodoka wince, the time traveler regretted saying what he had to, but really had no choice. The boy wouldn't be jumping in blind the way he had, and if, for some reason, he refused to go on the trip, Saffron would have to do all he could on his own to stop anything from going wrong.

"I'm gunna make it as easy on ya as I can, but there' stuff I'm gunna do that you're not gunna like, and stuff I'm gunna do that I can't explain why I'm doin it. If you agree, you're promising to treat me as your Sensei, show me as much respect as you do the ol' man in the art, and more, and to keep goin on the trip 'till I make you a master of the art, or decide I can't."

As he stared steadily into Ranma's eyes, laying down the ground rules, Saffron was surprised at how little the younger person's gaze tried to leave his. After a few moments of thinking, the young martial artist nodded. "I swear on my honor as a martial artist, and… I want to be trained." He finally said, quietly.

Saffron nodded, heaving an internal sigh of relief, and then smirked. "Okay, there should be some training clothes in your room, I think. Go get ready." The boy got up, quickly leaving the room, and the two older people sat there for a moment, looking at each other uncomfortably.

"You were right about him going." Nodoka said, almost sounding surprised. "Even when you did your best to dissuade him by telling him how hard it would be."

"The kid loves the art. Genma made sure of that pretty fast." Saffron returned, simply.

Nodoka nodded, taking a slow sip of her tea afterward, and as she put the cup down, her hand could be heard rattling it against the saucer. "You gave me your word that you'll protect Ranma, and keep in touch with me. I want to ask something else of you."

Saffron nodded for the older woman to continue, and she did. "In order to keep my husband in line, and ensure that Ranma became as well rounded as he could be, I demanded that Genma make him a man among men. From what Ranma has told me about his training trip, Genma has neglected his education, and other parts of a young man's upbringing that are very important." The woman frowned darkly. "I would not like to think what my reaction would be after ten years of that, especially since Genma hadn't bothered to contact me all year so far."

"Ya want me to keep the kid in school 'n try and make sure he's a bit better in social situations than I am." Saffron said, bluntly, and Nodoka looked down, as if ashamed to be caught making such a demand. "I ain't gunna promise he'll be a man among men. Hell, I dunno really what that means, but I can promise he'll be a good martial artist, and I'll get him ta school when I can, which'll be a lot more than Genma would."

"Thank you." Nodoka said, releasing a breath.

HR.

Half an hour later, Ranma and Saffron were once again standing at someone's front door, though this time they were much better prepared, as the younger was wearing a white training gi, and the older a set of red and black Chinese clothes. In front of them, Nodoka Saotome was smiling shakily, kind of wishing Saffron would have opted to run off first thing n the morning, the way Genma did, so that she didn't have to say goodbye to her son again.

Brushing that thought aside, the woman bent down, hugging the boy and kissing him on the cheek. "Good luck, Ranma." She said, quietly.

"Thanks, mom." The boy said, and turned to leave. For some reason, Saffron stared at the woman, then the house, for a few moments before shaking his head. "All right, let's go." He said, and the two moved off.

Watching from where she was floating, hidden, in the sky above the two, Skuld of the Norns wanted to smile, but felt rather conflicted. She was separating someone from their family, and unlike her, it hadn't been their own stupidity that had brought it upon them. Worse yet, she was putting the older Saotome through the unusual torment of knowingly setting his younger self up to go through torture in the name of the art. "You shouldn't be here, kiddo." She heard a voice, and almost let her levitation and stealth spells fail.

Turning, the youngest Norn saw her eldest sister standing behind her, a small bottle of Sake still in her hands. "What are you doing here, Urd?" She asked, confused.

"Hey, I may have agreed with Bell's statement, but that doesn't mean I can't come and annoy my favorite target."

"I thought your favorite target was Keiichi?" Skuld grumped.

"Yeah, but Bell's been giving me looks, too." Urd admitted, then sighed. "Look, Skuld, I understand you want to have things go well, but as hard as it is to believe that I'm saying this, you really can't hang around these two all the time. You'll give hell the right to start putting surveillance on them too, and maybe even cause some trouble."

"Yeah, I know." Skuld said, sighing. "I just found out when I came to investigate that all this was completely accidental, or at least not malicious, and then went checking in this guy's file."

"Oh? What'd you find?" Urd asked, curiously.

"I found out that while he wasn't exactly a saint, he was a decent person, and I don't like having to put the kid through all of this stuff at his hands." Skuld explained.

"Wow, sounds like you almost respect him. What happened to that 'all guys must be blown up' bit?" Urd asked, then winced as she realized that she may have gone a bit too far.

"That's only guys that try and marry my sister." Skuld said, surprisingly taking the joke as intended, but sounding a bit bitter about it.

Urd chuckled, but then shook her head. "You really should stop watching them." She observed.

Skuld nodded, as the two martial artists turned a corner, out of sight from the Saotome house.

HR.

Several hours later, Nabiki Tendo looked at her older sister dubiously. "Why am I doing this again?"

"Because I'm going to give you my dessert for the next week." Kasumi replied, only slightly irritated at her younger sister's complaining.

"Oh, yeah." Nabiki replied, and looked up at her reference photo again, stopping the scratching of her pencil across the paper. "Where did you get this? Those three girls look really familiar."

Kasumi sighed. She could just tell her younger sister everything, but she didn't want to worry Nabiki, in case what the man had said wasn't true. Still, he'd seemed so nice, and strong when he'd fought father, that she didn't think he could possibly be lying.

This both upset her, and gave her some hope. She had wanted to be a doctor ever since she was five, and had learned a lot about them. Early warning was very important, and if they could catch whatever was wrong with her mother, it would likely save her life. "Okay, never mind. He looks a little like the red haired one?" Nabiki sighed.

"Mmhmm." Kasumi replied. "He looks like her brother, and he even has the same hair style."

"Right…" Nabiki said, slowly, and continued to sketch, wondering if her sister had become unhinged.

HR.

In the Saotome household, Nodoka sat, reading through a telephone book for a completely different region of the country. When Ranma had told her about his friend, Ukyo Kuonji, she had started getting curious. According to him, his friend had run along the road waving to him when he'd left, but it seemed far too odd that Genma would ask her son a question like the one he had, and then run off the next day.

She hadn't wanted to mention it to the boy. After all, he was supposed to be home to relax, but it worried her, especially with what she'd learned about her husband's actions. Finding the first Kuonji in the book, she started dialing the number.

END.

There it is, please R&R!


	5. Chapter 4: Idiots and Okonomiyaki

Long story short? Writer's block on everything. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it! Now, if you'll excuse me, you've got a chapter to read... finally. Enjoy the show, folks.

Chapter 4, Idiots and Okonomiyaki.

Saffron walked into the small post office, letting the door swing closed behind him and brushing his hand against his forehead to try and ignore the heat of the day. Looking around, he noted that the reception area was nearly empty, and smiled. Hopefully, he would be able to get back to training his charge soon, but before that happened he needed to see if the two had gotten any letters from Nodoka. It was something they did in every town they visited, making sure to notify the woman of their next destination so that Ranma could keep in contact with her.

"Hey," He asked, laying a neatly printed document down on the counter in front of him. "Do you have anything for me?"

The rather bored looking receptionist looked over the form, quirked an eyebrow at the oddity of the arrangement it detailed, and checked it against a sheet that she'd pulled out of her desk before getting up and walking to a set of shelves behind her, coming back a moment later with a small, white envelope. "Please sign for this," She said, handing the envelope over to him.

He nodded, scrawling the word 'Saffron' on a sheet she offered and wincing at the choice of name. He'd really wished that he'd been thinking more clearly when he scrambled for a name in Setsuna's little cabin, but unfortunately Saffron, the phoenix king, had been close to the top of his thoughts for quite a while now, and annoyingly still caused him to wake up shivering every now and then. "Thanks," He said, shaking his head to dismiss those thoughts, and then bowing shortly to the receptionist before turning and exiting the building.

Flipping the crisp white envelope over in his hands, his eyebrow rose as he noticed that it wasn't addressed to Ranma, or even to himself and Ranma, but only himself. Easily slitting it open with a finger nail, he pulled a paper free and began to read.

"Hello Saffron-san, I hope that you will receive this soon. I've recently found troubling news relating to my husband, and would like to consult you about it. If you could please call me as soon as you could, I would appreciate it. Also, please bring Ranma. I would like to talk to him."

The ponytailed man's eyes widened slightly at the words of the letter, noting the signature at the bottom that identified it as Nodoka Saotome. Of course, no one else knew where to mail letters to get to him, but it was still surprising to get a request from her. "Wonder what she found out 'bout pop?" he muttered, shrugging and starting a casual, distance eating jog to the camp ground where he and Ranma were staying at the moment.

HR.

His limbs were burning as he swung one foot around in a wide, ponderous seeming roundhouse, desperately trying to keep his balance. At this moment, Ranma Saotome wanted nothing more than to collapse to the ground and not move for several hours, but his Sensei had given him his orders before he'd gone into town for supplies and to get any correspondence they'd been sent, and it had been made clear to him what would happen if he disappointed his Sensei.

It was better than what would happen if he disappointed his father, at least in some ways, but he still didn't want to be told that he had to start all over again the next day. Executing several more quick and slightly sloppy kicks, then leaping into the air, the young boy tried to pull himself backwards into a role, but not leaning quite far enough back, he landed hard on his head, hitting the dirt with his arms spread in a dust and sweat covered heap.

He panted for breath for a moment, staring up into the sky, and grumbled. "Only have to do it four more times," He panted, rolling onto his side and trying to push himself up, but as he did so he heard the sound of the brush nearby crackling. His eyes widened, and he threw himself forward just as a large branch impacted the ground where he had been, leaving a decent sized trench.

"Slackin off, are ya?" An irritated sounding older man's voice came from nearby, and Ranma turned to see Saffron standing and holding the stick that had almost taken his head off.

"N… No, I was trying to get back up," The boy protested, trying to get his breath back from the adrenaline fueled movement that had gotten him out of the way of the strike.

Saffron smirked. "Glad to hear it," He said, and reached out a hand to pull the younger boy to his feet. "You wanna talk to yer mom again? She asked us to call her."

Ranma nodded rapidly, and then started staggering after his teacher, who graciously slowed a bit, only speeding up when he saw the other's feet getting steadier against the ground. "Um, I'm glad to be able to actually talk to mom again," The boy said, "But why did she ask us to call her?"

Saffron shrugged. "I dunno," He confessed. "She said something about finding out something about Genma, and wanting to talk to me about it."

Ranma nodded, and then frowned. He'd been traveling with his new teacher for just over two months now, and while he enjoyed the way Saffron went about teaching the art to him, he was still worried that his father hadn't shown up yet. In truth, it had been the longest he'd ever been apart from the man since he was born, and he was getting worried. "Do you think she knows where he is?" He asked, tentatively.

"Not sure," Saffron admitted, his mind running along similar lines to the boys. Even worse, he'd had a divine being tell him that something had happened to his father during the Neko-ken that would keep him away, and was still flinching away from exactly what that could be. Looking back to the younger boy, he noticed that Ranma now looked a lot more worried than he did tired, and grimaced. "Hey, if you can beat me to the bar in town where there's a phone, you get to talk to yer mom first. If not, I'm gunna make ya wait." He said, and started sprinting.

Ranma's eyes widened. "Hey, wait!" He objected, his eyes narrowing as he followed the older man, his tiredness pushed to the back of his mind as he pushed himself to go faster. "You can't just start running like that, it's unfair!"

"Any advantage that ain't definitely against the rules is fair, Ranma." Saffron said, turning to run backwards and adopting a wise sounding tone. "You should remember that in future."

Ranma just snorted, redoubling his speed, and beginning to close the gap with the ponytailed man, a determined look on his face.

HR.

Ranma sat on a stool in the bar, sipping at a glass of icy water and glaring as Saffron stood nearby, dialing a set of numbers into a phone on the wall. "Hey, don't worry," The older martial artist said, "You'll get better than me someday, 'n then I'll have ta train like nuts to catch up."

Ranma smirked at that thought, and was about to say something in response when the other raised the phone, placing it to his ear. "Saotome-san? It's Saffron, you asked me to call ya?"

Nodoka's voice came from the other side, and she sounded very upset. "Yes," She answered. "I think I need you and Ranma to come back to Tokyo."

"Huh?" Saffron asked, articulately.

"Ranma mentioned a friend of his when he was here, a boy from a little village outside of Osaka." Nodoka said, and Saffron wanted to curse, but continued to listen. "Something about the story he told me seemed strange, so I began to look into him. Ranma's friend is apparently actually a girl, one "Ukyo Kuonji," and her father and my husband agreed that she would one day marry Ranma."

"A fiancee, huh?" Saffron said, hoping that his surprise sounded genuine, or at least that the interference on the phone made the bad lie harder to hear. "Look, I'm sorry, but I told ya, only Ranma can make me turn back now." He said, trying to sound firm.

"Saffron-san, I know what you said, but this is a matter of family honor, and we need to take it seriously," Nodoka objected, her voice somewhat strained.

The teenaged martial artist reached one hand up to rub at his forehead. "Yeah, I get that," He admitted, and then thought for a moment. As he did so, he reached into his pocket, retrieving a piece of paper that, even after two months of being stuffed into various pairs of pants, lost, crumpled up and gotten soaked whenever water decided to seak him out, still looked immaculate.

Looking it over, he noted that Ukyo's and the Tendo engagement were both on it, but there wasn't much detail to them. "Um, you said the place was near Osaka, right?" He offered.

"Yes," Nodoka responded, reading an address as though she had it written on a piece of paper in front of her.

"Right now, Tokyo's about as far off as Osaka is, 'n there are some temples up there I wanna take Ranma past anyhow. I'll go up and talk to this Kuonji person, all right?"

"I..." Nodoka said, unsure of the idea.

"If worst comes to worst, I can take the kid back to Tokyo with Ranma after I'm done." The ponytailed martial artist said, and Nodoka sighed.

"If you feel that's the best option," She said, though she sounded equal parts annoyed and relieved, probably because her original decision had been questioned, but someone else had offered to try and resolve the situation.

"Yeah, I do." Saffron said, and then looked over to where Ranma was fidgeting with a now empty water glass. "Ranma wants to talk to ya, can I hand the phone over?"

"Yes, of course!" Nodoka exclaimed, excitedly, and just before Saffron pulled the phone from his ear, she continued "Thank you."

"No problem," The teenager said, signaling his student to come over to him with one hand, and then giving him the handset.

Walking over to the window that displayed the main street of the small village they were in, he frowned. He hadn't really expected to deal with Ukyo so soon, but then, before the whole thing with the goddess showing up had started, he'd been trying to find a way to save his oldest and closest friend from what her life had become thanks to the engagement.

Granted, she had Ucchan's, but she'd also lost about as much of her childhood as he had, and he was trying to fix that already. Of course, a problem would come up if Nodoka insisted on Ukyo and Ranma spending time together due to their engagement, which had its own problems due to how Anything Goes was taught.

Like the bad guys in that one science fiction movie series, true masters of the Saotome school had to be trained one on one, at least if he wanted Ranma to be ready by the time he needed to be.

"Are you ready to go?" Saffron jumped a little in spite of himself as Ranma spoke up behind him, having been too deep in thought to notice the younger boy's approach.

He nodded, trying not to reveal the fact that he'd let a boy that wasn't quite seven startle him, and started for the door to the bar. "We've got to pack up camp and start moving," He informed his charge. "We're heading out tomorrow, jogging to the nearest train station, and I've got some more rocks."

Ranma winced. "Do we have to?" He asked, remembering the rocks.

"Only until I can throw a whole bag and not hit you," Saffron said, shaking his head. "Figure you'll be at that point in about three years."

"You're a jerk," Ranma proclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest as the two walked.

"Hey, that ain't very nice," Ssaffron quipped back, and scrunched his face up into an approximation of his father's sternest look. "You know, boy, you should respect your teacher. I'm much wiser than you are and know what's good for you."

"Yep, you definitely trained under Pop," Ranma said, deadpan, and the two both laughed.

HR.

Ukyo Kuonji stared out of the small, tarp covered nest of tables where she and her father had set up shop, not really seeing the rain as it pattered down in front of her. Instead, she was thinking about school this morning and the constant jabs that had been made at her expense, as per usual.

She didn't know who had told them about her fiancé running out on her, but if she ever found out, she would borrow her father's giant spatula and beat them with it until they couldn't see clearly. After them, of course, would be Ranma.

Grumbling, the seven year old girl flicked a hand out, the small throwing spatula in it flying straight and imbedding itself about a quarter inch into the wooden beam that held up one corner of the tarp. She could still remember the incident that had happened a few months ago, as she desperately called to her friend, and he waved merrily back to her as though it were some sort of stupid game. Grumbling, she stood and grabbed her spatula from the beam, brushing it off on her blue shirt and walking up to her father at the grill.

"Do you need any help, dad?" She asked, quietly.

He just looked over at her with that look in his eyes. She knew he was disappointed with her, but when she'd declared, two weeks ago, that she was going to go and train to hunt the Saotomes down, he'd told her not to. She thought that she was probably a disappointment to him in that, too.

Trudging off, the little girl entered the rain, gasping as it first touched her skin, but eventually getting used to it and starting to run along the road, working out her frustrations and letting her tears fall, masked by the water.

She wondered for a moment if she could just keep running and eventually run so long that she'd find Ranma, but she was already becoming short of breath as she looked behind to see the tarp far in the distance. She would need to get bigger and stronger before she could do that, but she would. Slowing to a stop, Turning back forward and staring down the road, she blinked.

There, walking towards her, were two human figures. Just like when she'd first met Ranma, one was a lot smaller than the other, but this time the taller one wore red and black, while the shorter wore the white of a training uniform. As she saw the pigtail blow behind the white clad figure in a gust of the rain, the dark brown haired girl's teeth clenched in a snarl of rage, and she started towards her target in a full run.

"Ranma!" She screamed, moments after letting fly with the spatula she'd brought, and then mentally cursed herself for giving him warning. The pigtailed boy rolled easily out of the way of the projectile, though rolling in the mud covered his white clothes with the stuff, and the person who was walking beside him slapped their forehead.

"Damn it, this sorta crap wasn't supposed ta happen for a few years," They exclaimed, in a very irritable female voice. Ukyo didn't pay attention, still in a full run towards her nemesis, the boy who had broken her heart so recently and now had the gall to come back. Leaping at him, arms out-stretched, the two tumbled into a ball of punches, kicks and grapples.

Nearby, Saffron watched impassively. There was very little a couple of kids their age could really do to each other, and she was making sure that none of it could happen, so she decided to let Ukyo work it out of her system. That usually meant more panting for breath and less screaming later on.

Several moments later, Ranma had Ukyo pinned, though the two were in a power struggle in order to keep the girl's left arm locked. "That was pitifully slow, kid," the redhead said, shaking her head.

"Sorry, sensei," Ranma responded, looking away from Ukyo for just long enough that she managed to raise a knee into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying a few feet away.

Just as the brown haired girl was about to capitalize on the opening she'd just made, Ranma's companion grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled... hard.

"Ack!" She yelped, falling on her posterior and glaring up at the older girl. "What are you doing?"

"Trust me, you're gunna wanna talk eventually, 'n it's cold out here," Saffron responded. "If it helps, Ranma doesn't know he's engaged to you."

"He what?" Ukyo asked, her eyes bulging.

"C'mon, I'll explain it while we walk," Saffrin said, and then looked back to her student. "You coming, Ranma?"

Ranma coughed for a moment, glaring at his teacher but then springing up, seeming to recover instantly, and running up next to her. "Why'd you have to get in the way with my spar against Ucchan?" He asked, angrily.

"You do know she..." Saffron said, and then slapped herself in the forehead. "No, forgot, of course you don't."

"Spar?" Was Ukyo's responce. "I was trying to kill you, you... you..."

"Jackass?" Saffron offered, helpfully.

"Yeah, You jackass!" the Kuonji girl screamed, knowing that the word really felt good, but not knowing why.

"Why would you want to do that, Ucchan?" Ranma asked, sounding almost hurt. "I didn't do anything to you." Then, he went pale. "Um, this isn't about that sauce, is it?"

"Sauce?" By this point, Ukyo had a very healthy little nervous twitch going beneath her right eye, and Saffron was marveling that a girl who looked that cute and innocent could exude that much killing intent. "We were supposed to be married!"

Before Ranma could respond with another one word, questioning answer, Saffron cut in. "Her and your pops' made a deal to get you married to Ukyo for her family's Okonomiyaki cart." She explained.

"But, um, I didn't think I was supposed to marry other guys," Ranma responded, as the three approached the tarp where Mr. Kuonji was still working.

Seeing the look of complete confusion on Ukyo's face, Saffron decided to leave the two to sort this out on their own from here on in, and walked off to talk to the older man.

Ukyo, on her part, was blinking so quickly that the world was looking like an animation run several frames per second too slowly. "Marry.. other... guys?" She asked.

Ranma nodded. "Mmhmm," He said, simply.

"And why, exactly, do you think I'm a guy?" the youngest Kuonji hissed out, her teeth clenched.

"Um, well you're really strong, and you don't have those lumps on your chest, and you don't talk like a girl, and... Hey, you don't have a curse like Saffron-sensei does, do you?"

"A..." Ukyo shook her head, completely confused at this point. She was still angry at her former best friend, but the look on Ranma's face looked so funny that she wanted to laugh. "What curse?" She finally asked.

"Oh, he turns into a girl when he gets splashed with cold water, and back into a guy with hot," Ranma said, casually.

Ukyo wanted to question that, but at the moment, she had a bigger issue. "No, I don't turn into a boy," her face crinkled up in disgust. "Are you teasing me like all those jerks at school, now? It's not gunna make me less mad, you know!"

"Um, no..." Ranma said, then narowed his eyes. "Are you sure you're really a girl?" He asked, reaching out and patting her chest. "I don't feel anyth..." He started, before Ukyo's punch to the jaw sent him flailing back into the mud.

"Can't believe it, he doesn't think I'm a girl," the young Kuonji grumbled, and then her eyes widened. "And what did you say about sauce?"

"Um..." Ranma said, looking nervous.

HR.

"Kuonji-san?" Akira Kuonji looked up at the sound of a voice from close by, blinking at the redheaded woman who was leaning casually against one of the small tables he had set up.

"Yeah? How can I help you?" He asked.

"I'm here to talk to you about Ukyo and Ranma," The redhead replied. "I heard about the whole engagement thing."

"Oh, are you Nodoka-san?" The older man asked, and then shook his head. The girl was far too young, though her voice did sound somewhat similar.

"No, I'm actually Ranma's current teacher," The woman said. "We're on a training journey across the country, but we came through here because Nodoka asked us to."

"Where's Saotome?" The man asked, his eyes narrowing. The last thing he'd recalled, Ranma had been traveling with his father, rather than some random girl who didn't look old enough to have graduated high school.

"Genma ran into some problems, that's why I'm trainin Ranma," The girl responded. "I'm Saffron, by the way."

"Unusual name." The girl just shrugged in response to the statement, so Mr. Kuonji decided to get on to other matters. "Still, the agreement with Saotome still stands, and if you've come on Nodoka-san's behalf, then I assume you're willing to do something about it," He said. "Will you take Ukyo with you when you leave with Ranma?"

The girl shook her head. "Kuonji-san, I dunno if you want Ukyo on this kinda trip," She said, "and I know I can't handle two students at once."

"What do you mean I don't want my daughter on that kind of trip?" Akira asked, turning from his grill and snapping the gas line that fed its flames off with a twist of his hand.

Saffron shrugged, and concentrated for a moment as though she were marshaling her thoughts. "The Anything Goes Martial Arts are based on a lot of adaptation, a lot of incorporating anything ya can learn from any stile, in any situation." She began, deciding to try a modified version of the speech she'd already given Ranma over a month ago, and that Genma had given her countless times. "As part of that, the student tends ta be put in situations that ain't very safe."

"You would be surprised at what Ukyo can handle," The man said, narrowing his eyes, but the redhead shook her head. As he was about to say something else, she began unbuttoning her shirt. "If you're trying to bribe me," He started, but was immediately pinned by a hard, and rather annoyed, look that caused him to shut up for a moment.

When the girl slipped off her red shirt, he could see that there was an undershirt beneath it, but she didn't start working on that, instead turning one shoulder to face him and pointing at a point on it. He leaned in, looking at the point and noticing a jagged looking white oval, encompassing a decent part of the shoulder. "Wolf," She said, conversationally. "When I was fourteen."

Pointing down, he saw another scar, this one a lot less irregular. "That was a rock, from off the edge of a cliff, when I was twelve." She explained. Reaching past him, she picked up a pot that was full of boiling water, dumping it over her arm and yelping in pain. "Okay, shoulda thought that through," A deeper male voice said, as a young man who was now standing in front of Ukyo's father looked down at an arm that was rapidly turning red. Walking over to the edge of the tarp, he stuck it out under the steady rainfall, and abruptly shrank back into the girl.

"Wh... how?" Mr. Kuonji said, his eyeballs almost poping out of his head with shock.

"Cursed spring in China, when I was sixteen," The girl said, in the same tone that she'd used to describe her other injuries. "There're a lot more, you know."

Mr. Kuonji shook his head rapidly, and the girl nodded, slipping her red shirt on and beginning to do up the clasps in the front. "I've found ways ta minimize the risk from when I was trained, but there's still a lot there. It's part of how ya train for the school." She explained. "Ya sure you want Ukyo dumped into that?"

The older man let out a long sigh, and then slumped down on one of the chairs near the griddle where he usually made his food. "No, I don't want her anywhere near that," He confessed. "Is that really what Genma intended for his son?"

Saffron shrugged. "I found him right after the ol' man finished with tossin him into a pit full of starving cats," She said, and he noticed a hitch in her voice on the last word. "Look, I ain't saying you and Ukyo have to give up your claim, but I can't take her on this trip. I'm not even sure I can train one kid without screwing things up, I know it won't work with two."

Mr. Kuonji nodded, and then frowned. "I don't think you'll have to worry about the engagement," He mumbled, slowly.

Saffron's eyes widened. She was actually rather happy about the idea that the Kuonji agreement could be gotten rid of, but the list had Ukyo's name on it, which meant her being engaged to this place's Ranma was supposed to illeviate some problem in the future. "Can I ask ya something?" She finally asked, as Kuonji continued to stare into the rain. When he nodded, she continued. "Why did ya willingly engage your kid to some wandering martial artist's son after he already told you there was a prior claim?"

Kuonji's eyes widened. "How did you..." He asked, but Saffron only smirked. After a moment he continued, "I may as well tell you. I did it because I thought he might have a better chance at raising her than me."

"Huh?" the ponytailed girl asked, confused.

Kuonji rubbed his forehead. "I was never very good at raising her," he started. "I know I'm always busy with the business, and Okonomiyaki is pretty much all I ever cared about. I didn't think it mattered, when my wife was around to take care of her, but she died a few years ago, and..."

"Wait," Saffron said, not really believing what she was hearing. "You sold your daughter to a sleazeball like the panda because you didn't wanna go through the trouble of raising her?"

Mr. Kuonji flinched, and then turned to glare at the other person who was standing nearby. "You don't understand."

"No, I probably don't," Saffron said, shaking her head. "Really hope I never do. So, now this has fallen through, ya gunna go find someone else to sell her to?"

"I'll have to be more careful to find someone who won't hurt her," The man mumbled, standing up and moving towards his grill, starting to lay out Okonomiyaki fixings.

The girl tangled her fingers behind her back. "Don't bother," She said, and wondered precisely what she was doing even as she did it. "The engagement's still on, but I ain't taking her on the training trip. I do know someone who'd love ta have her around, though."

"Hmm?" Mr. Kuonji asked, looking interested. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yeah." Saffron said, as she turned and started walking away from the man, noting that Ranma and Ukyo were fighting again.

Mr. Kuonji didn't say anything else, just turning back to the Okonomiyaki he was cooking, and Saffron walked up to the two children. "C'mon, Ranma. Ukyo, you need ta get anything before we leave?"

Ukyo looked up from where she was trying to secure Ranma in an arm lock, just giving him the slack he needed to escape from said hold, and blinked. "I'm... going with you?" She asked, hopefully.

"For now, yeah," Saffron said, nodding.

"Hear that Ucchan, we get to travel together," Ranma said, smiling happily at his best friend, even if she was being really confusing right now.

"Shut up, Ranma, I still haven't forgiven you for that sauce yet," She grumbled back, but as she headed for the tarp to collect her belongings, the redhead noticed a small smile flickering across her face.

"Well, here's hoping I don't get hit in the back of the head with a hammer for this," Saffron mumbled, looking down at her student, who was now covered in mud, bruises, and had a bloody nose. "Have fun?" She asked, only half sarcastically, only to receive a big grin in return.

END.

Okay, this makes things diverge so far that I don't think I can see canon anymore. That... can'tt be good, can it?


	6. Chapter 5: Welcome Guests

You know how you start walking down a hill, then stumble, and start running like a madman so you don't fall? Yeah, I'm trying to create that effect. Wish me luck and a broken leg, ne?

Sidenote: Five points to whoever fully gets the reference to a Joss Whedon show in this chapter.

Chapter 5: Welcome Guests.

Nodoka Saotome sat thinking to herself and rereading a letter she held in her hands. The first half of the paper was covered in her son's barely legible hand writing, while the second, containing much more information was written in Saffron's, which was only slightly better.

The letter looked just like all of the others that she'd gotten, but something about it was off. Namely that after she got it, detailing that Ukyo had been picked up, and they were going to take a trip through the shrines and dojos in the Osaka area, she'd gotten a call from Mr. Kuonji, thanking her for sending Ranma's teacher to resolve the situation and saying that she had done an admirable job.

Now, the Saotome mother was left wondering who the girl was that the man talked about, as Saffron had been very much male when she'd met him before, and a rather handsome young man, at that.

Still, Ranma's portion of the letter was definitely his, and he sounded happy to get the chance to play with his young friend again, not giving any indication that anything was wrong. She considered asking Ranma or his instructor about the inconsistency, but was distracted just as she set down the letter by the ringing of her phone.

"Hello?" She asked, after picking the handset up. Listening to the voice on the other end, her face took on a look of stunned surprise. "No, of course, I can be there in about half an hour," She said, shakily, and hung the device up. Quickly, she stood and headed for the stairs in order to get ready to leave the house, the strange inconsistency in her son's instructor's gender forgotten for the moment.

HR.

In a small classroom, Ranma Saotome stared at the chalk board, his eyes glazing from boredom. Beside him, Ukyo Kuonji was in a similar state, though she tried to pay some attention to the teacher's lesson on the basic Kanji. Looking over to her friend, she noted that his head was drooping, and sighed as she slipped a pencil out of the small bag next to her chair, chucking it at his shoulder.

He did his best to catch the thrown implement, but it slipped through his fingers, clattering onto the ground behind him. Having heard the sound it made, the teacher turned, looking at the boy in irritation. "Saotome-san?" He asked, evenly.

"Um, sorry," The young martial artist said, sheepishly scrambling from his chair and picking up the item before sitting back down.

"It's all right, just please try and pay attention," The man said, turning back to the bored, as Ranma gave Ukyo an irritated look, which she promptly replied to with an outstretched tongue.

'So stupid,' the Saotome Heir thought, though he did let his eyes focus back on the teacher. He'd never even been to school before the training trip had started, shortly before his sixth birthday, but every time he and Saffron stopped in a town large enough to have one, and were there long enough, he would end up stuck in it.

His father had always said that school was an irritant that he really didn't need, and that he didn't have to worry about it. Saffron was different, though, insisting that he'd be better off if he went whenever he could. In fact, Saffron was different from his father in a lot of ways, even if a lot of them weren't necessarily bad.

Twirling his newly acquired pen in his fingers, the boy smiled fondly as he recalled that, even though he was still fighting for his meals, he never seemed to feel nearly as hungry as he once had, and he hadn't broken a bone in almost two months, by this point.

Plus, Ucchan was with him, even if she kept saying weird things about engagement sometimes, and traveling with a friend was always better than... "Saotome-san!" The teacher's voice broke through the boy's thoughts, as he was using them as a quite good way of escaping his current boredom.

"Um, yes, Sensei?" Ranma asked, looking kind of sheepish.

"Can you identify this Kanji for me, please?" The man asked, pointing at the mark.

"Um... Rei?" Ranma tried, hopefully.

The teacher sighed. "No, Saotome-san. Please, look it up and be able to tell me by tomorrow, all right?"

"Yes, Sensei," Ranma said, quickly, and the man gestured to the door.

"There's supposed to be five more minutes, but you kids can go now if you'd like," He said. As he finished the sentence, the seven year olds were already moving quickly, and Ukyo fell into step next to Ranma.

"Thanks for giving me away," He grumbled, sourly.

"Well, you're not supposed to sleep in class," She objected, crossing her arms superiorly over her chest. "If you'd pay attention, maybe you'd have been able to get that question right."

"So, you know what it is?" He challenged, immediately, and Ukyo sheepishly scratched her head, looking off to the side. "Didn't think so," He proclaimed. "At least I won't have to worry about finding the answer; Saffron-sensei said that we were going to be leaving tomorrow."

"Where are we going this time?" The Okonomiyaki seller's daughter asked, both kind of excited and a little disappointed. The dojo where they were staying had a couple of really nice students that they'd sparred with, and she didn't really want to say goodbye to them.

"I think it's probably home," Ranma proclaimed, with a grin. "I saw him write that we'd be there soon in our last letter to mom."

"Oh, that's... good, I guess," The dark brown haired girl said, fiddling with a strand of said hair as they walked through the school building's front entrance and into the yard.

Ranma nodded. "Hey, you want to try to balance on the walls on the way back to camp, like Saffron-sensei showed us?" He offered, gesturing to the wall that ran around the edge of the yard.

"He showed you, remember?" Ukyo pouted, irritated.

"Hey, c'mon, it's not that hard, I'll show you!" Ranma said, running off towards the wall. After muttering 'idiot' under her breath, Ukyo followed quickly.

HR.

Ukyo walked down the street next to her best friend, looking around in a mixture of awe and trepidation. She'd never been to Tokyo before, and the bustling streets of the large city, so different from the small towns where her father had always operated, were very impressive. She was also worried that things wouldn't go well.

"Are… you sure about this, Saffron-san?" She asked, rubbing her hands together

The man who was walking in front of the two of them shrugged, not turning around. "Not completely, but if this doesn't go through, it just means that you'll have to keep traveling with us," He answered.

Ukyo nodded, and though she knew why that wouldn't be the best course, she couldn't help but hope that things happened that way. She had been traveling with Ranma and his teacher for over six months now, and it had been a lot of fun, at least when she or her friend weren't being put through conditioning drills that made the ones her father gave her look like fun games.

On some unseen signal, Ranma suddenly increased his speed until he was running, streaking past Saffron and heading down the street in a blur. Blinking in surprise, Ukyo started to follow, and Saffron chuckled, muttering about kids.

It was strange, how much he himself had learned during the trip, so far, and not just about martial arts. Though he knew a lot about what he'd felt like when he was a kid, and what he'd known, Ranma's behavior was starting to change from what he was expecting. Not by much, he knew, but the boy's higher spirits made him a little harder to deal with than he had been during the first year of the training trip, and the teenaged martial artist was finding that keeping track of an overly-excited kid, let alone two, was a pretty tough job.

The ponytailed martial artist caught sight of the Saotome home's front yard just as the door swung open, and Ranma smiled up at his mother. "Hi, Mom," The young boy said, and then glanced over at Ukyo, who was standing uncertainly to his side. "This is Ucchan, my friend," He introduced.

Nodoka smiled kindly down at the dark haired girl who stood next to her son. "It's nice to meet you," She stopped for a moment, before recalling 'Ucchan's' actual name. "Ukyo-Chan. I have some cookies in the kitchen, and you probably want to put your traveling gear away somewhere, right?"

Ranma nodded rapidly, and grabbed Ukyo by the hand. "C'mon Ucchan, we can put the stuff in my room!" He said, and the two ran into the building, leaving the time displaced martial artist and the woman who was a younger version of his mother alone.

"I didn't expect you back for some time," Nodoka confessed, as Saffron stepped past her and into the house.

"Ranma surprised me with how fast he could run when he was really motivated," He explained, sliding a large backpack from his shoulders, which the Saotome matriarch noted made a loud thumping sound as it hit the ground.

Nodoka only nodded slowly, leading the younger man into the house's living room, as Ranma and Ukyo both walked past them in the other direction, heading to the stairs with large cookies in their hands. "I was expecting you to put your things away first," She gently rebuked, and Ranma looked sheepish for a moment before she waved him off to keep going.

The room fell silent for a moment, as both Saffron and Nodoka tried to think of things to say, before the younger spoke. "I guess you know what I wanna ask 'bout Ukyo?"

Nodoka nodded. "It was rather obvious after you explained that she couldn't train with you and Ranma, but you had taken her regardless."

"Well?" Saffron asked, curiously.

Nodoka shrugged. "I had forgotten I think, how nice it was to have a child running around the house. For the past few months, I was taking care of the daughters of a friend of mine while she was in the hospital, and I really enjoyed being a mother again, rather than just sitting around and waiting for my son to write or visit." She chuckled, "I sound like an old woman," She admitted, recalling that some of her elderly neighbors had said similar things.

"So, you'll take her?" the ponytailed man asked, hopefully.

Nodoka nodded, but then looked at him steadily. "I will, if you tell me two things," She agreed. "First, why couldn't she be left with her father until she came of age for the engagement?"

The young martial artist grimaced in disgust, and quickly verified that Ranma and Ukyo were still in the former's room with his Chi sense. "Near as I can tell, he wasn't ready to raise a kid without his wife around. Figured bartering her off to someone who knew how ta do it was a smart move." He snorted. "So of course, he picked Genma."

Nodoka's eyes narrowed at the rather obvious insult to her husband, but she let it slide for the moment. "So he would have just given her hand again to the next person who would have taken her?" She asked, looking a little green, for more than one reason. She had realized during the year that her son had been gone with her husband that she had done something similar, and it frightened her, that she would be willing to do such a thing for a signature and a hand print on a piece of paper.

Saffron nodded, apparently not noticing the woman's extended train of thought. "What's the other question?" He asked, tentatively.

"Who was the girl who talked to Kuonji-san?" She asked, bluntly. The question had the desired effect, as Saffron seemed to freeze up and become pale, letting her know that this was important.

"That's pretty hard to explain," He said quietly, his mind racing for something to tell her. Granted, she'd accepted that he couldn't guarantee her son would be a man among men, but chances were that she wouldn't exactly like Ranma to be trained by someone who shifted genders with a splash of water. "It's, um, one of my techniques," He tried. "Usually, it's easier for girls to deal with really unreasonable people than it is for guys."

Nodoka had already picked up, from earlier conversation with the young man, that Saffron wasn't a terribly good liar, so what confused her now was that he was honestly telling the truth, for the most part, even if he was hiding something. "One of your techniques is to cross-dress?" She asked, dubiously.

Saffron's eyebrow twitched, as he realized that that had been one of the dumber ways he could think of to cover for his curse. "Not exactly," he mumbled, and then sighed. At this point, telling the truth probably wasn't going to get him in as much trouble as letting her keep thinking what she was. "It's a curse I got in a training accident about three years ago," He started. "At a training ground in China."

Nodoka's blink was almost audible. "You're cursed to dress up like a girl?" She asked, as Saffron's eye twitched violently. Standing, he headed for the kitchen, the older woman following. When he got to the sink, he quickly turned the tap and splashed himself with the cool water, his body shrinking and distorting into female form.

"Oh," Nodoka said, knowing that the word was completely inadequate, but also not knowing what else to say. Granted, though, her question had been answered, even if the answer rattled quite a few of her beliefs, including that rather pesky one about the laws of physics.

The younger redhead, for her part, looked on apprehensively as Nodoka tried to collect her scattered senses. "It's triggered by water temperature, I've been looking for a cure for a few years, 'n I've about given up on it by now," She grimaced at that admission, "and was born a guy."

"I see," Nodoka nodded, though she still looked rather shaken. Saffron considered telling her more, but decided that it would probably do no good until the shock had worn off.

"I'm going to go and scout a good training site in the city," She said, and left the kitchen through the rear door, casually leaping to the top of the wall that surrounded the house's backyard, and from there to a nearby roof.

HR.

Soun Tendo sat on a bench, watching as his wife knelt on the ground nearby, playing a game with their youngest daughter. For a moment, he felt like getting up and walking over to hug her tightly, but the feeling passed, as it had ever since he'd stopped automatically giving in to it the week before. Their family had been through such a close call recently, and he'd come so close to losing her that he really couldn't help feeling that way.

As he leaned back, looking across the park to see his two older daughters playing together in a sandbox nearby, the man almost didn't notice someone else sitting on the bench next to him. Looking over, his eyes widened as he recognized the person.

"Someone told me she'd gone into hospital," the boy said, leaning back himself and gazing at the group. "She gunna be all right?"

Soun nodded. "It was a small heart defect," he started. "It would have been unnoticeable in most types of physicals, and if we hadn't gone in for every test our family doctor could think of, her heart could have given out at any high stress event."

The boy nodded. "Glad ya caught it," he noted, and as his eyes focused on Midori, Soun noticed that he gave the girl she was playing with a strange look and muttered something.

"What did you say?" He asked, confused.

The boy shrugged and turned away. "It ain't exactly somethin I should be thinking," he said.

"It's easy enough to figure out," Soun countered, "Given the promise that Genma and I made."

Saffron nodded. "Yeah, I just kinda wonder what they're doin now, I mean, I've been gone for almost a year already."

"I wondered about that," The mustached man confessed. "I thought you would get home as soon as you could."

"Stuff to do," The other said shortly. "I'm actually here 'cuz of one of those things. Well, that and ta check and see if your wife's all right." Soun raised an eyebrow, so the younger martial artist continued. "If a girl named Ukyo shows up and asks ya to train her, it'd be a big favor ta me if you'd do it, preferably without charging her."

Soun thought for a moment, and nodded. "My boy, for what you have done to help my family, it seems like a pretty simple thing to do."

"Thanks," Saffron returned, before standing and walking off. Soun looked after him for a moment, before returning his gaze to his happily playing family, wondering for a moment why Kasumi was excitedly pointing in the boy's direction, but shrugging it off. Standing, he walked over to his wife and youngest daughter, resting an arm around the woman's shoulders and reaching out to catch the ball as Akane tossed it.

HR.

"Stop glaring at me like that, you're just jealous that ya can't do it," Saffron said, as she sat in an ice cream parlor, the rather irritated goddess of the future sitting across from her. The other girl had shown up about five minutes before, and smacked her in the back of the head much more softly this time than she had the first time they met.

"I'm not jealous," the younger looking girl mumbled, before taking a large spoonful of the treat and putting it in her mouth, her expression turning blissful as it melted. The ponytailed martial artist suddenly wondered if she looked like that, hoping very much that she didn't, because it made the goddess look sickeningly cute.

"So, why'd you hit me this time?" She finally brought herself to ask, when the other girl had dropped her spoon into her bowl. "Lemme guess, what I did with Ukyo wasn't the right thing? I wasn't gunna just let her dad sell her off, and if I'd ignored mom's request ta go talk to Mr. Kuonji, I'd have to stay away from Nerima for the next ten years or so and Ranma'd probably freak at not being able to send her letters."

Skuld raised one hand, shaking her head. "Ukyo's path is definitely going differently from where it's supposed to, but it shouldn't matter much as long as she's here when she's supposed to be. I'm actually here because I've got something for you." Saffron blinked as the goddess pulled a folder out of a bag she'd brought with her, laying it on the table.

With some trepidation, the martial artist reached out and opened it, only to have several small cards and pieces of paper fall out with a clatter. Picking one up, she saw that it was an identification card, showing her male form's head on a white background on one side, and a bunch of information on the other. "Saffron Reynolds?" She asked, blinking at the girl across the table from her.

Skuld shrugged. "At least one of your forms looks non-Japanese, and Saffron's not precisely a common name," she explained.

"So, why'd you give me this now rather than a year ago?" The redhead asked, thinking of several times where a set of identification would have been useful.

"Well, I'm technically not supposed to be helping you anymore," Skuld explained, looking a little sheepish. "I used entirely mortal resources to get these made, so they don't technically violate the treaty between the gods and demons."

"Don't... technically?" Saffron asked, her stomach sinking at the sound of those words. "I'm not gunna get attacked by a vengeful Oni over these, am I?"

"No! Of course not..." Skuld said, then followed it up by mumbling, "...at least not a big one..."

Saffron's look at this statement could only be called dubious, but she scooped up the cards and papers, sticking them into a pants pocket. "Thanks," she said, as she stood and headed out of the ice cream parlor.

Skuld nodded absently, scooping up another mouthful of ice cream, before a very familiar female voice came out of nowhere and caused her to jump about half a foot into the air. "You know, that's both kind of cute and really stupid."

"Urd?" The goddess of the future asked, turning her head to see said goddess standing behind her chair. Her older sister smirked back at her, and walked around the table to take the seat that Saffron had just vacated.

"So, my little sister's got her first crush, hmm?" The oldest of the Norns commented. "You know, Thor and I had a bet on which team you'd play for, I think we've both got to pay Loki for the whole gender switcher thing."

"You're betting on my love life?" The younger sister asked, her eyebrow twitching. "Which, by the way, I don't have, you nosy old hag."

"Hmm, then how do you explain what you just did?" the silver haired woman asked, with a smirk.

"It's an exercise in self control," Skuld retorted. "Distracting myself with that keeps me from wanting to flatten Keiichi for sleeping with my sister."

"Not buying it, squirt," Urd said, shaking her head and standing. "Anyhow, Bell sent me to get you, there's a big dinner with Keiichi's whole family at the temple, and she wants you there."

"All right," Skuld replied, standing to follow her sister.

"So, you have his medical records, how healthy is he?" The older sister questioned, grinning manically as the two headed towards a Television store on the other side of the street.

"URD!" Skuld yelled, blushing bright red, as she got slapped on the shoulder.

"Sis, you're so easy to tease," The Norn of the past giggled.

HR.

All around him, the man could hear the beeps and whirs of working mechanical and electrical equipment. These were the first sounds to penetrate what seemed like a very long sleep. All he could remember at the moment was two sets of very inhuman eyes, and pain like none he'd felt before.

His mind and body both seemed sluggish to respond as he cracked an eye open, a blurred, white checked expanse not quite coming into focus before him. Turning his head to the side revealed more of the same, though now what looked like a small television screen with a pulsing green line on it also came into view.

'A hospital,' was his first coherent thought. He was in a hospital, but he couldn't recall why. Trying to raise his head or force himself to a sitting position, the man found that he felt unbelievably weak, and even when he did manage to raise his head, it swam violently, a briefly seen glimpse of wall and door twisting ninety degrees as he looked at it.

Gulping sharply, the man slumped back to the bed, hissing in mild pain as his back made contact. "How much did I drink last night?" Genma Saotome croaked, tiredly.

END.

Thank you, come again. Please leave a review.


	7. Chapter 6: Time Out of Mind

Okay folks. Writer's block is a dark and lonely place, and I have no Shi Shi Hokodan to light my way. I've been finding it harder to write recently, for some reason, so I really, really hope this chapter's enjoyable. Don't hesitate to tell me if it sucks, though, or any other thoughts you have.

Chapter 6: Time Out of Mind.

Ranma sat next to the fire at the campsite, struggling through his math homework as his teacher worked on a piece of paper of his own nearby. He considered grumbling to himself as he struggled to finish a problem, but knew that would just bring an offer to help distract him from the work, and at the moment he wasn't sure if he could stand up to another training session.

His recent training hadn't actually been all that hard during school days, his sensei letting him play with friends after school and do his homework, but on the weekends, he trained harder than he ever had while the two travelled. He understood, sort of, why they were doing this, so he could go to school and improve at the same time, but sometimes he just wished he could give up going to class and train full time, like he had with his father.

He frowned for a moment, remembering the old man again, as he did every few weeks, but shook his head irritably. He hadn't seen the old man in five years, and was starting to think that he'd just run away for good after the Neko-ken had completely failed.

Shaking his head and turning it back to the paper he was working on, he considered it for a moment, before deciding that he'd gotten it as close to completed as he could expect. Standing, he walked over to his teacher, peering over his shoulder at a piece of paper full of strange looking symbols, somewhat like Japanese, but just different enough to be hard to make out, along with some diagrams. One showed a stick figure of a man standing, little scratched notes around his feet and hands, as a cone with a spiral in the middle of it shot from his arm.

As he watched, trying to figure out what the diagram meant, his sensei scribbled several characters over the cone, before the hand holding the pen abruptly shot backwards, the implement just barely streaking past Ranma's ear as the boy dove out of the way. "Thought ya could sneak peaks over my shoulder, huh?" Saffron asked, looking back at his charge, who scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"That technique looked interesting," the boy admitted, sheepishly.

"Interesting and dangerous," Saffron returned. "You'll be ready to learn it eventually."

The boy crossed his arms irritably, having gotten very tired of hearing that statement over the years, but as he did so, the paper he had been working on brushed against his chest, and he remembered it. "Could you check this over?" he asked, handing the paper to the older man.

Saffron nodded, and much to the younger martial artist's disappointment, he somehow made the scroll he'd been working on vanish, so quickly and completely that Ranma couldn't even understand how he did it, let alone see where it went.

"Let's see here," the ponytailed martial artist mumbled, and produced a blank piece of paper from a pile next to him. As he worked, Ranma took his own paper and picked up the pen that had lain at his feet, considering if he wanted to write to his mother and Ucchan before he went to bed.

He often did so when he asked his travelling companion to help with his homework, as though Saffron was almost always able to solve even the tougher problems that Ranma knew little of, he took a very long time to do it, and the way he did was nothing short of bizarre, involving hypothetical martial arts battles, and something about herbs and spices.

When he'd asked about the strange writing, and why it always took Saffron so long to solve any math or science problem, even simpler ones, he'd just responded that it was the reason why Ranma always going to school was so important. Adults, the twelve year old decided, were just weird.

HR.

Nodoka smiled to herself as she read the letter from her son, detailing that the boy was currently near Nerima, and would likely be coming home in about a month. Though the notes came every few weeks, she was always delighted and somewhat surprised to receive one, even after several years.

Originally, she had only let her son out of her sight because she knew that she couldn't stop someone who had trained in the art under Genma, even if she did seem to want to trust him for some reason. However, Saffron had kept his word, and Ranma kept detailing new and exciting places that he had been to, along with people he'd met and his progress in the art, proving that her trust had been reasonably well placed, even if the boy's teacher was quite possibly the antithesis of many of the aspects of manliness.

Ranma himself, though, was turning out to be quite manly already, even if he still didn't understand what the notes some of the girls in class passed him meant yet. She contemplated explaining things to him when he came home this time, but decided that he was still a little too young, even if he already had a girl betrothed to marry him.

As she thought of her, Ukyo ran out of the kitchen, her bento in hand, cooked by herself at her own insistence. "Good morning, Ucchan!" The auburn haired woman called, lowering the letter. "Ranma-chan sent a letter, he's going to be home soon."

"Really?" Ukyo asked, running over to the older woman. "Let me have a look, please Mom?"

Nodoka shook her head, smiling. "You can read it when you get home from school, dear," she rebuked, looking up at the clock. "You have to get going."

Ukyo frowned for a moment, but folded as she looked up at her surrogate mother, noticing her firm look. "Okay," she said, reluctantly, turning and heading for the door. Nodoka nodded, slipping her son's letter into a drawer in the desk near her chair and standing. "I should probably clean up," she decided, heading for the kitchen where she was sure Ukyo'd left okonomiyaki batter all over the counter again.

HR.

"Did you bring it?" Akane looked up from where she'd been staring at the sidewalk, irritated.

"Hey Ukyo, good morning, how are you doing?" the youngest Tendo said, sounding somewhat irritated as she walked, swinging her lunch box.

"Oh, yeah," the brown haired girl said, scratching the back of her neck as Ranma always did. "Um, good morning Akane."

Seeing her best friend's impatience, the other girl smiled, opening her school briefcase and withdrawing a bundle of blue cloth. "I brought it," she said, handing the parcel to Ukyo.

The other's face broke into a large smile, and she quickly checked the bundle's contents, before nodding. "Thanks so much, Akane. Mom's been getting more strict about this sort of thing lately," she explained.

"Yeah, you told me," the Tendo girl replied. "I don't even know why you care, though. It's weird."

"It's not weird," Ukyo objected, as the two girls ducked down into an alley, the okonomiyaki chef in training dashing for a dumpster to hide behind. "I like it, and it's not hurting anybody."

"It's gunna give Mrs. Saotome a heart attack," Akane countered, as she kept watch for her friend. "You know how she feels about this stuff, 'It's not ladylike, completely improper!' " The girl did a rather good imitation of the elder Saotome's voice, causing her friend almost to jump.

"Don't do that," Ukyo growled. "I thought she was really there!"

Akane giggled, as a completely changed Ukyo exited from behind the dumpster, her hair tied tight and hidden as best she could in the back of a boys school uniform, the long skirted jumper of the school's girls uniform neatly folded in her arms. "Do I look all right?" Ukyo asked, turning slowly.

"As boyish as ever," Akane agreed, in a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Now can we get going? We're gunna be late, and then we'll get detention."

Ukyo paled, imagining what would happen if Nodoka found out she'd gotten detention again, before nodding. "Right, let's go," she called, and started running.

As Akane chased after her, and the two hopped up to a wall, she asked, "You remember what I asked for in return for doing this for you, right?"

Ukyo groaned, almost slapping her forehead and sending herself off balance. "Oh, right," she grumbled. "Don't worry, I'll keep teaching you how to cook, okay?"

"Yeah!" Akane yelled, leaping up into the air with a fist upraised, before landing, somewhat unsteadily, on the ground. "Thanks a lot, Ucchan!"

The brown haired girl frowned, wondering how many of her limited supplies would be burnt through in the next few months, but tried her best to keep it to herself as the two approached Furinkan Junior High.

HR.

Something was wrong, and Skuld knew it, though she couldn't figure out what it was for the life of her. Tapping on the hard light keyboard in front of her, she paged through dozens of entries in Yggdrasil's karma management system, trying to figure out the anomaly. It seemed to be present in the file of one she had been looking into rather regularly in the past, one "Saffron Reynolds" (Ranma). Urd was probably right, that she was concentrating on the file too much, though every time she ran through the main events of this particular mortal's life, something seemed to nag at her, as if she was supposed to notice it, but for some reason had not.

As she reviewed the last years, after Saffron had begun training his younger self in earnest, leaving the Kuonji girl in Nerima, she noticed that other beings who had contacted the displaced man also felt somehow… off, though looking at their futures through the system, their actions and consequences, showed nothing out of the ordinary.

As she scrolled along the timeline of young Ryoga Hibiki, the sense of strangeness building at every decision marker, a knock resounded at the door to her bedroom in the temple. "Yes?" she snapped, irritably, looking away from the computer screen.

"Skuld, it's time for dinner," Belldandy's voice floated into the room, and the goddess of the future found her stomach growling. She looked back to the screen for a moment, only to note that, for some reason, the records screen had crashed back to her desktop, the red eye of a Zaku II mobile suit staring back at her. She bit back a curse, dispelling her interface, and heading for the bedroom door.

As she came to the bottom of the stairs, the youngest of the Norns saw her eldest sister, her arms crossed over her chest and a smirk on her face. "So, squirt, you spent all day fussing over your favourite person?" the older, silver haired woman asked.

"Urd," the young inventor said in warning.

"Hey, don't go denying it," the goddess of the future returned. "After all, you've grown quite a bit since you first met lover-boy-girl." Saying this, she poked her younger sister in the chest, jabbing her in one of her modest breasts. "When are you going to meet him again?"

"None of your business," The outburst came before the younger goddess could stop it, so she quickly changed the subject.

"And this was to keep Keiichi's family from noticing anything wrong, and you know it," She brushed her sister's hand away brusquely, stomping towards the kitchen and throwing a glare over her shoulder. "Now are you coming to eat or what, old hag?"

Urd just snickered, following her younger sister into the kitchen, where she could smell something lovely being cooked.

HR.

"C'mon, you can do better than that!" Saffron barked, watching as Ranma spun through the air, landing in a slightly wobbly stance before his opponent. The boy threw his teacher an irritable look, which turned out to be a mistake, as a fist smacked into his cheek, sending him staggering backwards. Luckily, he seemed to have the presence of mind to turn and go with the blow, catching the other's legs in his own as he fell and slamming them to the ground.

Without giving his opponent any time to recover, the pigtailed martial artist rolled, putting as much weight as he could on his opponent's legs and beginning to hammer away with strong blows. Even though they weren't his forte, his style more focused on speed, the other had taken enough punishment already, and expended enough energy, that he slumped backward, unconscious.

The young martial artist got to his feet, swaying unsteadily. "I won, I won!" he slurred, before falling onto his back with a whumph of expelled air. Saffron quickly moved up to the two, examining the boy Ranma had been fighting, and taking off his tiger striped bandanna. He quickly looked over the boy's wounds, binding those that looked severe enough to need it, before moving over to Ranma.

He knew what would be coming next if Ryoga woke. It had happened every time Ranma and the lost boy had fought before, and the pattern would repeat here. Neither he nor Ranma would admit defeat, especially since Saffron had been offering them prizes of cookies, made from the recipe of Kasumi herself, as incentives.

Grumbling, the time travelling martial artist removed a well-worn piece of paper from his pocket, reading "Ryoga becomes bitter rivals with Ranma," and looked down at the boy. Looking over to the side of the battlefield, where his and Ranma's supplies had already been packed, he withdrew a second note from his pocket and dropped it on the fanged boy's chest before bending down, picking Ranma up and walking off.

When the other martial artist woke, he would receive a note that said "Had to leave for Nerima. Will see you again some time." He knew that the lost boy wouldn't get the hint, but of course, that was the point.

HR.

Genma Saotome sat in front of a crackling fire, watching the rain pound down beyond the tarp that he was sheltering beneath and pondering his life up until this point. On the whole, he thought, he had fucked it up so royally that he couldn't see 'all right' any longer, but he couldn't let that get in his way at the moment.

He'd been out of action for over a year and a half, having received severe spinal cord damage from the thing that had attacked him during the Neko-ken, though he'd mostly recovered from that. Unfortunately, he'd also had a lot of time to think once he'd woken up, especially as he'd gone through physiotherapy to be able to walk again.

Shaking his head, he turned his eyes from the stormy weather outside, tossing a piece of wood on the fire and sighing. "You all right, old man?" A voice came from beside the balding Saotome, and he turned to see a young boy in a white bandanna and dirty grey gi sitting next to him.

"I'm fine, Ryu," Genma replied quickly. "Just thinking."

The boy grunted, before standing and heading into the tent that was set up next to the tarp. Genma watched him go for a moment, sighing. Ryu, of course, was another reminder, about as painful as the gashes he could still feel throb from time to time, despite the fact that the doctors said he shouldn't be able to feel anything from that portion of his back… a reminder of what he'd done, and that he'd lost his son, who was still somewhere out there, either alive but totally insane, or mercifully dead.

Reaching over to his backpack, placed behind him and propping him up, the old man retrieved a small journal which contained the things he had planned for his son. He flipped it open, reviewing and noting that he had planned to travel to China in a few weeks, to test the boy's absorption of new techniques into the school of anything goes.

He studied the book for a moment, seeing the sloppy but sure hand writing found there, and tossed it into the fire, where it caught, illuminating his face more brightly for a moment. He knew what he was going to do next. Ryu had been taught the fundaments of the Anything Goes, and could learn the rest from Soun. He wasn't going to tell the boy what was likely to happen when they got there, but he already knew that they were heading for Tokyo.

"No-chan," Genma whispered. "I'm coming home."

END.

As you've read, there has been a time skip in this chapter. It's been a bit over four years since last chapter, which took place about a year and a half post Neko-Ken, if that helps you any.

Hope you enjoyed, and please R&R!


	8. Chapter 7: Revelation

I don't like this chapter. No, scratch that, I REALLY don't like this chapter, but this fic was caught in a bog, and the confrontation between Saffron, Ranma, Nodoka and Genma was the sticking point. I tried for a good long while to figure out a way to get through it, and in the end, when I realized that a good solution wasn't going to present itself, I wrote until I'd slogged through it. Just a warning. I'm sorry, and I hope at least some of you enjoy it.

Chapter 7: Revelation.

"Would you stop doing that?" Akane asked, slightly irritable as her best friend skipped down the street, a wide smile across her face.

"He's going to be here today," Ukyo returned. "I'm happy."

"Yeah, I know," Akane grumbled. "That's why you let me blow up the rice by mistake." She frowned, looking at the small char marks on the front of her school jumper and wondering how mad her mother would be when she showed them to her.

"Hey, I told you about the cooking oil being there," Ukyo justified, before returning to her brightly smiling state.

The youngest Tendo knew that she should be happy that her best friend's childhood romance was coming back, but she hadn't met the boy, due to the fact that he only came around a few times a year, and what Ukyo told her about him made him sound like a real jerk. "What's so special about this Ranma, anyways?" she grumbled.

Ukyo shrugged. "He was my first friend," she explained. "And we always used to play together, though he thought I was a guy for most of the time."

"Gee, I wonder how that happened," Akane drawled, looking her friend's boys school uniform over, Ukyo having recently had to wear bindings to restrain her budding chest. Ukyo didn't listen to the blue-black haired girl, knowing that she was just upset at another culinary failure and would be more pleasant soon. It had happened before, after all.

"Look, just promise you'll be nice to him rather than calling him a jerk for running away on the engagement when you first see him, okay?" the brown haired girl demanded, as the two reached the front door to her home.

"I already promised," Akane said, placating.

Ukyo gave her an odd look before opening the door, calling "I'm home, and Akane-chan's with me!"

Nodoka's normal cheerful greeting didn't come back to the two, and Ukyo gave her friend a strange look before they entered, taking their shoes off quickly and making their way to the living room. What they saw there was Nodoka sitting, not moving, across from a bald man in a dirt smudged white shirt and black pants. Neither girl wished to be impolite, so they stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do, before a male voice cleared its throat behind them.

Akane turned first, noticing a boy in a grey Gi and white bandanna standing in the hall near the steps. "Um, Ukyo, is this Ranma?" she asked, uncertainly.

"No, I'm not!" the boy snapped back, rather loudly and irritably, as though that were some sort of common mistake. Immediately after he said it, the boy flinched, looking over the two girls' shoulders, and they turned as well.

There wasn't anything of any concern behind them, however, only Nodoka, who had gotten up from her seat across from the bald man and was standing at the doorway. "Ukyo-chan," she said, looking down at her adopted daughter, her eyes crossing for a moment at her clothing. She seemed to put that aside quickly, however, shooting a look back at her guest. "Could you please take Akane and…" She gestured to the boy, finally deciding on "our guest up to your room while we talk?"

Ukyo quickly nodded, rather thankful that the older woman was busy, and kicking herself for forgetting to change back to her girls' school uniform. "Sure Mom," she said, and turned to the boy. "Come on, um…"

"Ryu," he returned shortly, before following the two down the hall and up the stairs.

After the three children had departed, the balding man spoke. "Who's the boy? I recognize the girl as Tendo's, but…"

"That's not a boy," Nodoka grumbled. "She just seems to have it in her head that being one would be better than being a girl." The room was uncomfortably silent for a moment, neither figure knowing where to begin.

For the man, it was surprise. Nodoka hadn't greeted him with any of the reactions that he had prepared himself for. Not the happiness of thinking that he had finally returned with their son, or anger built up over a long absence, but rather total shock that had taken her a long time to recover from. Still, it seemed that now she had recovered, and spoke. "I thought you would have fled the country by now."

"Hmm?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

"You've been gone for six years, Genma," the woman started, and then began to build up steam. "I've found that you sold our son to at least four different people for food or money, then that you disappeared after a technique…" She shuddered, recalling what she had been told regarding the Neko-Ken.

Genma winced. "Then you know?" he asked, slowly, suddenly understanding, at least to some degree, his wife's reaction. He wasn't, however, expecting a hook to the jaw, and a surprisingly well executed one that sent him falling sideways out of his chair and to the ground.

"Do I know?" she asked, "Do I know? I know that you trained our son for only one year, and then gave him up to another teacher while you ran, and that I haven't seen you since, that is what I know." She stood over him, towering and almost generating a battle aura in her anger.

"But…" Genma's mind whirled, as he tried to process what his wife had just said. 'Another Teacher?' He thought, woozily. "Nodoka, Ranma… Ranma is dead…"

The woman was about to go off on another tirade, this time about how Genma had tried to use that technique to kill the boy, when she caught a glimpse into his eyes, and stopped. There was a look of confusion there, mixed with remorse, and a great deal of pain both physical and emotional. Something, she quickly realized, wasn't right. "Ranma isn't dead, Husband," she said coolly and quietly.

As Genma heard that, the pain of the hit to the jaw and the agony in his still very fragile back was brushed aside, just for a moment, with surprise and hope. "What? How do you… That thing, it almost killed me, and…" he started to babble. Snapping his teeth shut, he began to consider, as he laboriously forced himself back up and in to his chair.

"What almost killed you?" Nodoka asked, with an expression that was equal parts concern, confusion and caution.

"It's why I took so long to come and see you," Genma explained. "Six years ago, I attempted a powerful training technique on Ranma…"

"The Neko-Ken," Nodoka cut him off, though the man continued, deciding to ask her how she knew of it later.

"Yes, the Neko-Ken." He looked down, ashamed to meet her eyes. "I had heard of, and indeed been through, many painful techniques, and though I know now that this one was much worse, I suppose I wasn't thinking clearly back then, and…" He mumbled the next part quickly, sounding almost like "I forgot to read the warnings."

"On the final day of the technique, " the bald man continued at normal volume, "The boy finally seemed to master it, and burst out of the pit, though… something followed him." He shuddered. "It looked like a teenaged boy, but the look in its eyes wasn't human, and so… angry." He shook his head. "The thing attacked me, and nearly killed me. I managed to get to the nearest town before passing out, but it took a long time after that for me to recover."

"Five years?" Nodoka asked, somewhat skeptical.

"No, only two," Genma countered. "The other three and a half were spent trying to find Ranma, and when I failed in that, training Ryu so that the school would not die."

Nodoka frowned, considering. She knew now, based on the actions she'd heard he'd performed on the training trip before vanishing, that she didn't know her husband or what he was capable of nearly as well as she had once thought. Before, she'd believed everything he'd said to her, about his travels, about the art, and about their son, but that trust had been rather heavily damaged over the past six years. Still, he looked sincere in what he said, and what he said amounted to admitting his guilt in a lot of things, and saying that he had planned to accept her judgment of his actions.

The problem was that if what he'd said was true, she had a good idea who the teenager who'd attacked him was. "Have you ever trained with a young man named Saffron?" she asked, levelly. "He transforms into a woman when splashed with cold water."

Genma's eyes widened. "What?" he asked, startled, and Nodoka began to explain.

HR.

"C'mon Ranma, we're almost there!" Saffron yelled, as he leapt over a gap between a small home and a convenience store roof, balancing casually on an outcropping.

"I know I wanted to learn how to do this," the young boy panted, "But did we have to do it now?"

"There's not really a better incentive," Saffron shrugged. "If you touch the ground before your front yard, we leave the district and return to our campsite."

The pigtailed boy sighed, running and leaping off of the roof he was on, catching himself and straightening on the outcropping next to his teacher. "Good," Saffron nodded. "Got your breath back?"

Ranma didn't really have time to answer, as the older man leapt away, and he quickly followed after. As he leapt onto the next roof, and began to recognize structures nearby, he smiled. The last few weeks had been very hectic ones, and he was going to enjoy the break that came from his visit home. Saffron had insisted he request a full year's worth of study material ahead of time, and there had been so much of it that it weighed down his pack better than the rocks that were usually added to add weight. This was apparently for the final leg of the training trip, which would see them visiting civilized places very rarely.

Ranma had asked where they were going, but the ponytailed man would only smirk, and tell him that it was a surprise. He wasn't sure he liked Saffron's idea of a surprise, as the last one had involved a new training technique… with wasp nests. Shaking his head, he realized that his teacher was standing at the edge of the next roof, and looking around he saw that they were across from his mother's house.

"Okay, this is close enough," the older man said with a smile, jumping down to the ground. Ranma frowned. This was probably a trick, he decided, as he saw the older man standing on the sidewalk waiting for his student to join him. After all, he'd been told that he had to enter the yard. Coiling his legs beneath himself, he leapt, landing for a brief moment on Saffron's head and catapulting across the street, sending the older man falling to the ground and catching himself on his hands.

"You're getting' better at this," Saffron called, standing and heading for the door. Ranma was faster, though, and had already run up and knocked on it, as he usually did. When the door swung open and Nodoka was revealed standing in the doorway, the ponytailed man walked up behind his student and smiled at her. The smile she returned was rather strained.

"Hello, Ranma-chan," she said, hugging the boy, before nodding at Saffron. "Saffron-san."

"Mom, I've got a lot of stuff to tell you about," the young boy started, excitedly, though Nodoka raised a hand.

"Can you go and tell Ucchan first?" she asked. "I've got to talk to Saffron-san for a while." Ranma looked confused for a moment, but quickly nodded, dashing upstairs and calling for his best friend, as Nodoka turned and walked into the house, Saffron following, and his danger sense going off at a very high intensity. Nervously, he shifted his eyes around, looking for whatever was causing the sensation, until the two of them entered the living room, and he suddenly realized. Genma Saotome was waiting, sitting in one of the comfortable chairs, and glaring at him.

The balding martial artist was all set to start yelling, demanding to know who the hell the younger man thought he was for attacking him so long ago, for almost killing him, when he was stopped by the look on the other martial artist's face. He was surprised, most definitely, but there wasn't the fear of discovery there that he was expecting. Instead, there was a profound relief. Saffron opened his mouth a few times, trying to say something, before he finally decided to walk across the room and poke Genma in the shoulder.

"What exactly are you doing?" Nodoka finally snapped, rather confused by the whole situation.

"I thought..." Saffron started, before shaking his head. "Never mind what I thought."

"No, I'm curious," Genma drawled. "Whoever the hell you are, why were you so relieved to see me when you tried to slice me in half the first time we met?"

Saffron winced. Though he was relieved to find out that Genma was still alive, and while not precisely well judging by the walking stick he had leaning next to his chair, at least not paralyzed or anything, he hadn't really given any thought to what he would say if the old man had shown up again. Skuld had said that he wouldn't be coming back for quite a while, but then that had been several years ago, and he supposed that qualified.

"It's, kinda a long story," he started lamely, only to get a look from Nodoka that caused him to twitch, wondering when she was going to start reaching for her sword.

"I would suggest that you begin explaining quickly," the auburn haired woman said stiffly, acting much more formal than she had even when she'd found out about his curse. He knew that she'd eventually grown to trust him, enough to let him train her child even, and was regretting it now.

"Screw it," he muttered. "I can't lie to save my life anyhow."

"Hmm?" Genma asked, actually sounding kind of curious.

"If you could go back in time, and change all the crappy stuff that'd happened to you, would ya?" Saffron suddenly blurted out, causing both of the Saotomes to look at him like he was insane. "Like you, Genma," he scrambled through his memories of his father, trying to say something that the goddess of the future wouldn't kill him for. "If ya could go back and tell yourself not to get caught up with the Master, would ya?"

Genma shuddered even at an off-hand mention of the one who must not be named. "How do you know about HIM?" he hissed, angrily.

Saffron didn't answer, turning to Nodoka. "If you'da known about the Neko-ken, would ya have let the ol' man take Ranma on the training trip?"

"Of course not," Nodoka said, eliciting a wince from Genma, who rapidly got things back on track.

"I don't see what this has to do with you nearly killing me and kidnapping my son," he growled.

Saffron shrugged, taking his backpack off and digging around in it until he found a small sealed bag, the one that now contained the contents of his old wallet, now without the picture of the Tendo Christmas party. Both older people watched him curiously, as he withdrew a small, dirty looking laminated card and handed it to Genma.

Genma's eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the image, which was clearly a younger version of the man in front of him, along with the information written next to it. Nodoka, for her part, saw only the image on the other side of the card, which was of Saffron's female form, grinning cockily and aiming a V-sign at the camera, as she was apparently photographed in the middle of an open field.

"Ranma Saotome? Is this some sort of idiotic joke?" Genma yelled, bolting to his feet and grabbing Saffron by the collar, before wincing, dropping the younger man and rubbing his back.

"Not really, ya can ask Mr. Tendo if you want, he's got better proof than that," Saffron answered.

"So you're trying to tell me that you're my son," Genma started, and Nodoka gasped, grabbing the card from his hand and studying it as he continued. "And you came back in time somehow in order to get rid of me and try and 'fix' some damage I caused to your life?" He wanted to be completely disbelieving, but even as he sat his back twinged, reminding him of the thinking he'd done while cooped up in the hospital, and the major errors he'd admitted to in his training even before the Neko-ken.

"I didn't come back on purpose," Saffron shook his head, as Nodoka remained silent, flipping the Furinkan High ID around in her hands. "I just woke up in the pit, and ya saw what happens when a Neko-ken sufferer can't get away from cats. When I got told that you weren't going to come back, and that Ranma, erm, I mean your Ranma," he pointed up to the second floor in explanation, "needed to be trained in martial arts, I sorta had to do it since no one else 'round here could pull off Anything Goes training."

"You were told?" Nodoka finally asked, tearing her eyes from the card in her hands.

"Another long story," Saffron mumbled, and was about to continue, when the sound of several feet charging down the stairs from the second floor distracted him. All three adults turned as Ranma and Ryu marched down the front hall, glaring at each other, Ukyo following them curiously. The two boys were out of the door before anyone had the presence of mind to ask what was going on, and it was Nodoka who grabbed Akane, the straggler in the group.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, casting a look between the blue-black haired girl and Saffron, as if to make sure he wasn't going to try and run off.

Akane rolled her eyes. "Your son and that Ryu guy got into a boasting match about their martial arts schools," she explained. "Now they say they're going to settle it with a fight."

"What?" Nodoka demanded, and the expression on her face said that she really didn't need this at the moment, with the other things that were going on. She was about to head out to stop them, when Genma spoke.

"No-chan," he said, forcing himself to his feet. "Let's go and see this."

"Husband?" the Saotome matriarch said, glaring at the balding man, who only let himself flinch at the look for a second.

"If this... person's explanation is true," Genma explained, "then the easiest way for me to accept it is to see Ranma's fighting style. I know what Anything Goes looks like, and I know I hadn't taught him nearly any of the style before the Neko-ken."

"What's going on?" Akane asked, fidgeting uncomfortably under Nodoka's grip on her shoulder, which had gotten rather tight.

"You will stop them if it goes too far?" the auburn haired woman demanded, getting a nod from both Saffron and her husband. Noting both affirmatives, she let Akane's arm go and proceeded outside, seeing that Ranma and the boy in the white Gi who had come with Genma were nowhere to be found.

Saffron looked around and shrugged. "They're probably at the abandoned lot about two blocks south, it's where me 'n Ranma spar when we come to visit." Genma nodded, and the group started towards the location at the older man's best possible speed. Due to his limp, it took them several minutes, by which point the fight between Ranma and Ryu was well underway.

The battle was actually looking a lot like the last one Saffron had been in with his own version of Ryu, which relieved him, as Genma had clearly taught the boy that throwing around full power vacuum blades wasn't a good idea, and the pigtailed boy's own training, which had been modified slightly to take attacks like the Chi powered voice into account, was holding up. For a moment, he found himself watching the match as Ranma flipped over Ryu's head, delivering a double-footed kick in the back which Ryu just barely managed to roll with. The fighting was a lot more fast paced than the boy's battles with Ryoga, and since Ryu had apparently gotten some training with Genma, was a beautiful display of what the Anything Goes was about.

"Ryu's style, the one he's supplementing Anything Goes with," Genma barked. "What is it?"

It took Saffron a few seconds to realize the older man was talking to him. "The Yama-senken," he replied. "The path of the noisy thief, designed to demolish a house, or an opponent, and take what you want without worry. You sealed it and its sister school, the Umi-senken, away because you felt they were too powerful... but then went and sold Ryu's father the scroll for one of them for food."

Genma twitched, but then reluctantly nodded. "Correct, and something I'm surprised that I ever told Ranma," he admitted, causing Nodoka's eyes to widen.

"Then... it's true?" Nodoka asked, looking somewhat like the shock of the revelation was going to knock her over.

"Yeah, but we probably shouldn't talk about it here until after you've decided what you're going to do," Saffron said, looking meaningfully down at Akane, who was standing next to them. "If I'm still training Ranma, he can't exactly find out about it."

Both parents reluctantly nodded, while Akane blinked up at the group, but decided not to ask, as all of the adults looked pretty serious. Still, she listened carefully for any other tidbits of information as the fight wound down.

It finally did so abruptly about three minutes later, as Ranma was trying to lead Ryu into giving him an opening, and saw the people on the sidelines. He stopped for just a second as his eyes widened when he saw his father, but that was just long enough for the grey clad boy to connect with a blow to the chest that sent him flying backwards and into a wall.

Nodoka was on her way over to him in an instant, and even though he saw that the hit hadn't been too bad, Genma was as well, simply because he hadn't seen his son in so long. Even Saffron, unsure of what was going to happen next, couldn't help but smile as he saw the old man bending down and gently examining his son's head, ignoring the pain his back gave him. In the middle of the battlefield, Ryu just snorted and kicked a pebble.

HR.

"So..." Saffron said, as he sat in one of the chairs in the Saotome living room the next day. He'd headed back to his campsite the night before, deciding to leave them alone for a while and let Ranma see his father.

Both of the younger boy's parents were sitting in front of him, looking at him curiously. "You believe that Ranma has to be trained fully in the Anything Goes in order to avoid some disasters in the future?" Genma asked, recapping an explanation he'd been given minutes earlier.

Saffron nodded. "Yeah. There was a bunch of bad stuff I wouldn't have survived without all of the training, and Skuld says there's a bunch of other things I effected that coulda gone worse, too."

"Hmm," the old man said, leaning back. "I will admit that his training was impressive, he held his own against the Yama-senken and the Anything Goes that I taught Ryu when we were traveling together. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I could continue much longer, that's why I came back here to confront Nodoka in the first place."

Nodoka nodded. "I am... somewhat unsure about you, being Ranma," she admitted, somewhat slowly, causing Saffron to wince, abruptly recalling his own version of the woman holding up the Seppuku contract. "However, you've done well on keeping your word so far, and I believe that Ranma's continued training in the Anything Goes is important."

"I talked to Soun, found out about his wife," Genma continued. "I don't like it, but it looks like you're actually the best one to train the boy."

Saffron sighed in relief, and Genma smiled at him for a moment. "Don't screw this up, boy."

"Um, thanks, pop," the ponytailed man's words were very uncertain, but Genma's returning, half infuriating smirk was very recognizable.

END.


	9. Chapter 8: Texan Tornadoes

Chapter 8: Texan Tornadoes.

"So, you're gunna be gone a long time this time, huh?" Ranma looked up from his pack, after having somehow managed to shove several pounds of paper into a space that wasn't half large enough for them, noting that Ukyo was standing at the door of the bedroom they had shared for the past week and a half.

"Saffron Sensei says it'll be the longest I've ever been away from home," he said, doing his best to conceal his apprehension at this fact. Brightening, he continued, "But he also says when I'm done, the training trip'll be over."

The Kuonji girl nodded, stepping into the room and looking over the remaining things that needed to go into her friend's traveling pack. She saw, on the top of the pile, a photo that had been taken only a few days before, of Ranma, herself, and Mr. and Mrs. Saotome posing together and smiling. "Well, you'd better write, or I'll beat you into the ground when you get back. Tendo-san might show me how to summon weapons, y'know."

Ranma took a moment to imagine Ukyo running after him with a giant spatula that she could summon out of mid-air, and shuddered theatrically. "I'll write, don't worry." He promised, picking up the picture and wrapping it in several of his fighting outfits before tucking it into the pack. "Where's your friend?"

"Akane said she wanted to leave us alone," The brown haired girl explained. "Said the lovebirds should say goodbye without her around." A strange expression crossed both children's faces as they thought about that, before Ranma shook his head and kept packing.

"Um," Ranma finally said, breaking the somewhat uncomfortable silence. "Did ya make an okonomiyaki for me to take with me when we head out tomorrow?"

"Is food all you ever think about?" Ukyo asked, crossing her arms irritably. At a pleading look from her best friend, she let her irritated look fade to a slight smile. "Don't worry, you'll get one."

"Yeah!" Ranma said, raising a fist in celebration, before hugging the young okonomiyaki chef.

HR.

Saffron casually reached up, catching the head of a large, red mallet in his hand as he sat in front of a fire in the little camp he'd set up in the abandoned lot where so many fights had, or would, take place. "Wasn't even moving that fast this time," he commented, as he released the weapon and the Goddess of the future returned it to its place over one shoulder.

"Well, you didn't do anything this time," She responded.

"So, everything's on track?" The ponytailed man asked, before picking up a spoon and poking at the stew that was cooking over the fire.

Skuld was about to shake her head, when she caught herself and looked around, seeming almost as though she were looking for something. After a few moments, when Saffron gave her an obvious questioning look, she reluctantly confessed, "I'm… not really sure."

"I thought you tracked all that?" The temporally misplaced martial artist asked, frowning. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," The Norn was obviously frustrated by this answer. "Everything looks right. Everything you've been doing with Ranma seems to head off the problems I originally detected, but…"

"But it don't make sense, since I'm not doing a very good job of it," Saffron finished, causing the girl to raise her eyebrows in surprise. He shrugged. "I've been pushin my luck, waiting ta see when you'd show up and tell me to do it right for the past three years," he confessed.

The Goddess's eye twitched, and she brought out her debugging hammer, smacking the martial artist in the head and sending him flying across the camp site and into a tree. "How could you mess around with time like that?" She asked, angrily, and then slumped. "Even if I wouldn't have been able to do some of the things I asked you to," She admitted, reluctantly.

Annoyingly, Saffron bounced to his feet after rolling to a stop against a large tree, brushing his clothes off. "Well, it doesn't matter, right? Things are on track still."

"Yeah," Skuld said, suddenly calling her keyboard into existence and tapping away at it. The ponytailed man couldn't understand the text feed any better than the last time he'd seen it, but the blinking series of intersecting and overlapping lines in the middle of the view at least made some sense. "The problem is, things shouldn't be going this well if you've been 'pushing your luck' for years."

"Ya think there's something wrong with whatever it is you use ta predict the future?" The martial artist asked, worriedly.

Skuld scowled. "I'm not sure." Kami-Sama, she hated those words. "Just… try and keep things a little closer to the list, all right? I'll ask my older sisters to take a look and see if I'm missing something." Saffron only nodded, before his eyes widened as he saw the dark haired girl seem to leap into the air, coming down in his boiling stew pot. Instead of hopping out, screaming, she seemed to warp reality as she fell, disappearing into the steam.

"I… don't wanna know," he muttered, walking over and staring into the food.

HR.

Genma's expression was pensive as he leaned heavily on the frame of the Saotome home's front door, watching his son and the boy's teacher walk down the street. His expression didn't even change as the two rounded the corner, leaving him staring at the small hardware store at the intersection.

"Husband?" Nodoka's voice cut in on the larger man's thoughts, and he looked away to see her standing on the walk in front of him, looking at him with some concern. He was honestly surprised at how quickly she had begun acting caring towards him, rather than angry at him, though he suspected that it may have something to do with his badly injured state, one positive to it, at least. "Are you all right, Husband?"

The bald martial artist shook his head to clear his mind. "I'm fine, No-Chan." He said, reassuringly.

"Saffron-san gave us his word that he will return with Ranma within three years," The auburn haired woman began to reassure him, in spite of his words. "He has always done what I asked of him before."

"Oh, I'm sure Ranma will be back, he'll probably be very strong, too." Genma nodded. He had been studying the boy's new trainer all week, and had come to the conclusion that the ponytailed martial artist was a master in his own right, an equal, or perhaps superior, to himself in his prime. "You just may not like what else he is."

"Hmm?" Nodoka asked, confused, and Genma realized that he had said his last sentiment aloud.

"It's nothing," he said, quickly. If Nodoka didn't realize what he himself found self evident, he would prefer not to burden her with what she, as well as he, had agreed to. He had figured out in the third day of studying the man who called himself 'Saffron' that one of the key events that had likely molded him into the fighter he was had been the curse he bore. The one Ranma would likely also have to gain, if he were to become as good. Pushing himself off of the doorframe and turning to enter the house, the Saotome patriarch wondered what, exactly, he was supposed to do about that.

HR.

"Flame Sniper!" Sailor Mars yelled, a bolt of fiery energy shooting across the distance between her and a multi-legged monstrosity. The creature bellowed in rage as the attack hit, already showing evidence of several other wounds from the other Senshi who surrounded it. "Usagi, are you gunna get off your duff and finish this thing, or what?"

"I'm working on it, I haven't used this attack in years," the twin pigtailed blonde whined, as she leapt up to a platform in the center of the park they were in, striking a dramatic pose and calling "Moon Gorgeous Meditation!" The monster attempted to dodge, but wasn't fast enough as a rainbow of light overwhelmed it, dissolving it into dust. "Yeah, I've still got it!" The woman yelled, jumping into the air and pumping her fist.

Nearby, Sailor Mars rolled her eyes, while the other inners stood with sweat drops rolling down their foreheads.

"Well, are we done?" Sailor Uranus's voice came from nearby, where she, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Pluto were approaching. "Don't even see why we were called in over this thing, someone else would have gotten it."

"Hey, Uranus, don't talk like that, we've saved a few people." Moon rebuked and then smiled. "Besides, it's always fun to see everyone again."

All the other Senshi smiled back, and they were about to leap off and untransform, when Pluto suddenly gasped, falling backwards. Neptune reacted instantly, reaching out and supporting her fellow outer, but the dark green haired woman seemed catatonic in the other's arms for a few moments before shaking her head to clear it. "Setsuna?" The blue-green haired woman asked, concerned. "What's wrong?"

The Senshi of time shook her head. "I'm not sure," She responded, before summoning her staff and teleporting away, leaving the others in the dark, as usual.

HR.

"Where in the world am I now?" Ryoga Hibiki bellowed, glaring around the open field irritably, before moodily digging his red umbrella into the ground and moving it around, not noticing the small trench he was digging.

"You lost?" He looked up rapidly, seeing a brown haired girl standing casually a few feet away, looking curiously at his umbrella.

"I'm looking for the Nerima district," he finally decided to say, not wanting to admit that he didn't know where he was and feeling that this was a good compromise.

"Well you've found it," The girl said, shrugging. "This is Furinkan Junior High." She looked him up and down, her expression speculative. "Did you want anywhere specific in Nerima?"

"Wait, you mean I'm here?" He asked, dropping his umbrella with a loud THUD that the girl observed in slight surprise before dashing forward and grasping her shoulders. "Where's Ranma?" He asked, shaking her roughly.

"Hey, let go of me!" The girl exclaimed, struggling, before bringing a knee up into the lost boy's groin. He barely seemed to notice the hit, but did release her shoulders and back up, tugging at his yellow and black bandanna.

"I'm sorry, I just got kind of excited," he said, shamefaced, as he looked down at the ground and began fidgeting with his fingers.

"It's all right, I guess," The girl said, reaching up one hand to rub at her shoulder and wincing somewhat. "But you'd better not do that again, or I'll…" She pondered for a moment. She had landed her knee into the boy's groin with a decent amount of force, and he'd barely budged. "I'll get Akane and Ukyo to beat you up," She finally decided.

The lost boy wasn't sure who the girl was talking about, but she seemed confident in her threat, so he gulped anyways. "I won't, I promise." He finally said, before his eyes widened. "Wait, did you say Ukyo?"

The girl nodded, giving him a nervous look.

"Ranma said he knew an Ukyo, I bet she'll know where he is," Ryoga exclaimed, smiling suddenly. The girl, for her part, twitched at how quickly he could go from repentant and nervous to triumphant. "Can you take me to her?"

"Um, yeah. Sure," the girl said, feeling somewhat nervous, but trying to shrug it off. She knew her sister and her best friend could beat anything up six ways from Sunday, and she could get some cool fighting shots if it happened. Still, the boy who was now following her seemed very strange, especially as she turned around to look at him and noticed that he had turned away from her and was headed for the playground's boarder fence. "Hey, where are you going?" She asked, wondering why she didn't just let him wander off.

"Oh, um, sorry," he said, turning back to her and giving her a sheepish grin. "Can we keep going to see Ukyo?" Nabiki just rolled her eyes and kept walking.

HR.

"All right, let's go again," Soun Tendo said, as he looked across the Dojo at a rather irritable looking young boy. He was the second student the Tendo School's master had agreed to train for free, but unlike the first, he was proving to be a difficult one. "Go!" He called, and the boy pushed himself forward, crossing the floor in a distance eating run before jumping into mid-air and bringing down a foot in a kick that probably would have broken the older man's neck.

Soun instead brought up an arm, catching the boy's foot on it and bleeding off momentum in a spin before lashing out with a light kick. The boy didn't even acknowledge the hit or seem to realize that it could have been much harder, using the opening Soun had provided for training purposes to launch a back kick that nearly dislocated his knee. The long haired man grunted, jumping away and yelling "Halt!" as Ryu began to pursue him. The boy only came to a stop after a couple of feet, looking irritable.

Soun looked him over, shaking his head. He knew how Genma's school worked, and knew that the other man believed in hard sparring, where neither opponent pulled their punches, but the boy before him seemed to almost be going exclusively for crippling or killing blows. "Ryu, this is a sparring match," he said, slowly. "Please attempt to take it easy or I will not be able to show you counters and blocks without severely injuring you."

The boy nodded, and Soun returned it before beginning the session again.

HR.

Kasumi fidgeted nervously as she stood in front of the simple grey stone building, reading the name on the sign next to the door. Taking a deep, calming breath, she stepped forward, entering a cozily decorated waiting room, the only oddity visible being a medical model of a human skeleton standing in the corner. "Hello?" She called, noting that she'd chosen the right time to come as the place was empty of customers. As she looked around, she noted that everything was organized and clean, though there were several interesting books scattered on a table where she would normally expect to see several week old magazines.

Picking one up, she read the title. "Rare plants and remedies of the Japanese wilds," she muttered, running a finger along the raised letters and wondering what kind of 'wilds' the author was talking about.

"Hello," A rather strangely modulated voice said into her ear, and the eldest Tendo daughter looked over to see a skull smiling at her, and a boney hand clamped over one shoulder.

"Gyah!" She yelped, leaping at least three feet up and away from her previous position, landing facing the supposed threat in a defensive fighting stance. When her heart slowed down somewhat and she started actually looking around, she saw a brown haired man, approximately twenty five years old, holding up the skeleton she'd noticed earlier.

"Oh, sorry Miss, I didn't mean to scare you," he said, releasing the arm he'd put over her shoulder. "Well, I did, but not quite that much." He admitted with a bit of a smile.

"Th… that's all right," The eldest Tendo daughter said, attempting to regain some of her composure. "Are you Dr. Ono?"

"Tofu Ono, yes," The man said, looking Kasumi over with a critical eye. "Is there something I can help you with, or did you come over to say hello?"

"Neither, actually," The girl said, though suddenly, what she had actually wanted to ask the man seemed very forward. She had expected an old, wise looking man when she'd heard about a new chiropractor and shiatsu specialist, not someone who barely looked ten years older than she was, especially since he was very handsome. "I, um," She fidgeted with her hands, reaching into a pocket on the front of her school uniform and pulling out a note. "I was wondering if you needed an assistant!"

Dr. Ono raised an eyebrow, taking the note from the girl and reading it. He noted that it was a permission slip from Furinkan High School, granting Kasumi Tendo permission to work a part time job due to her exceptional grades. "Tendo…" He said, frowning in thought. "I believe your little sister's been in a couple of times, Akane, right?"

The brown haired girl nodded, and the doctor placed her note in a pocket before saying "I didn't put out a help wanted sign, does this place really look disorganized enough to need an assistant?" The words were off-hand, as he gestured around, but not mean spirited.

Kasumi blushed. "No, sir." She said, quickly. "It's just that I'm going to try and get into medical school after high school, and working here could help me do that."

Dr. Ono considered, making a bit of a show of it. He'd actually noticed the girl before him skulking around his clinic for the past few weeks, and had wondered what she wanted. Now that he'd gotten his answer, and saw her nervousness as she waited, he really didn't have a choice. "Your wage won't be very high, but I can give you the run of most of my library." He finally said, and the girl's expression perked up so quickly that he thought she was going to hug him. Instead, she just bowed several times, repeating "Thank you" over and over.

"I assume that's acceptance of the terms," He smiled, enjoying seeing someone else so happy. That was, after all, why he'd taken the job. "You'll work Sundays, and afternoons, if that's all right."

The girl didn't even answer, just running out of the clinic and almost bowling over Mrs. Ishida as she did so.

HR.

Ranma was nervous. Not because his Sensei had told him that he was going to begin a new training regime, as all of those so far had been interesting, informative, or both, but because the older man, himself, seemed nervous. The two were standing at the edge of a dirt road that lead into an unusually thick looking forest, and Saffron was shifting from foot to foot in front of him. "Um, Saffron-san?" He asked, as the other had been silent for the past few minutes.

"Right," Saffron said, shaking his head. "Ranma, I've got a little test for you before we leave Japan to train in China. We'll be in some pretty tough jungle part of the time, and I need to know you can survive." He gestured to the forest behind him. "You're going to go in there, with nothing but your pack, a tent and your cooking supplies. You'll be in there for seven days, if you leave early then we're returning home."

"So it's just a survival test?" Ranma asked, though he felt kind of anxious still.

Saffron nodded. "You can call for me whenever you want to, but if you do, I'll consider the test failed. Got it?"

Ranma nodded.

"Good," the older martial artist said, before gesturing to the forest. "Now, go!"

The younger boy bolted forward, lost in the underbrush within a minute. His teacher merely frowned. "And now, the training really starts up," he muttered, picking up a broom he'd left laying on the ground, that the forest's current caretaker had lent him for his task.

END.

Sensitive dependance on initial conditions. Because the world hates you.

Okay. Well, there's the latest chapter of this fic. I hope it's a good one. I'll refrain from mentioning a name, just in case it isn't, but I've got one of my reviewers from last chapter to thank for finally inspiring me to write this one. If you notice the major focus of the chapter, I'm sure you know who you are. Thank you.

I hope you all like it. Please, Read and Review.


	10. Chapter 9: Very Tragic Story

A chapter that was very easy to write, but which I was warned about by one of my Betas. Hope you enjoy it, and sorry 'bout the wait.

Please R&R.

Chapter 9: Very Tragic Story.

A man tossed irritably in his bed as a knocking sound bounced around the walls of the dimly lit room in which he lay, eventually ending up on his back and staring up at the thatched roof. He pondered just ignoring the sound and going back to sleep, until it came again and he sighed, rolling out of bed and fumbling for something on the floor before clicking on a beat up little army surplus flashlight.

At least, the Jusenkyo guide thought as he hurriedly dressed, he hoped this visitor had bothered to seek him out before wandering into the springs. His hope was confirmed when he pulled open the front door of his little hut, taking in the man in a dirty red silk shirt who stood there. "Welcome to Jusenkyo, honored customer," he started, trying to stifle a yawn. "It is rather early for you to safely move about the springs, I would recommend that you come back when the sun has risen."

The martial artist looked at him blankly for a few moments, and then slowly returned, "This one's Chinese... not good."

The pudgy older man nodded, and tried again in Japanese. "I say it very dangerous to walk around springs in dark, Mr. Customer." he tried, and the other nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, I know," he said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "But I had to talk to you before I came back with my student later."

The guide nodded, repressing a sigh at the statement. It appeared that he couldn't get the martial artist to leave so that he could get back to sleep. Of course, when he'd accepted the job of guarding the springs, he'd been warned about days like this, and wondered if it were time to dip into his strong Coffee. "You like tea?" he asked, as he turned and re-entered the hut, gesturing for his guest to follow.

No thanks," the martial artist returned, as the older man bent down at the small fire place and lit it, introducing its flickering light into the room. After he'd set up a kettle to boil, he turned back to see that the customer had taken a seat at the table in the middle of the room and was waiting patiently. "Sorry to bother ya like this," the younger man said, scratching the back of his neck under his ponytail.

"Is all right," the guide returned. "You talk to me first, means you know something of springs, yes?"

The customer grimaced. "Yeah, I know about the curses." He gestured out towards the door, and then continued, "Spring of the drowned girl."

The guide's eyes widened as he took in that information. "You here for cure?" He asked, though that didn't exactly mesh with the martial artist's earlier mention of a student.

The younger man shook his head. "Nah, Last time I tried to get a cure it destroyed a building and almost got my fiancee killed." Granted, a lot of that hadn't been directly the fault of the barrel of drowned man water, however it was as good an excuse as any, and he couldn't tell the guide that the real reason he couldn't cure himself right now was that his student would likely try to kill him after what he was planning to do to him either way, and walking off without a curse himself would likely make it about ten times worse. "Like I mentioned before, I'm here to train my student."

The guide's eyes narrowed. "Customer knows the springs are very dangerous, why train student here?"

The dark haired man sighed, leaning back in his chair and looking at the ceiling, trying to figure out an answer. "It's just really important that he be trained here," he said, finally.

"That not very good reason," the guide opined. "I doubt you Amazon punishing disobedient warrior," he gestured obviously at the customer's current very male form. "And be warned, if you Musk trying to use old ways of getting bride on human..."

"What?" The customer's face turned green as he interrupted. "That's... Guh..."

The guide nodded in satisfaction. The martial artist didn't seem that type, especially with the curse he himself claimed to have, but it was still a good idea to check. "I normally not care if stupid customers ignore warnings and fall in spring, but it very confusing you know and wish to train. Even stranger you come speak with me first."

"Yeah," the customer nodded. "I wanted to ask you not to give your warnings when we come later today. That's why I'm here so early, so I can talk to you without Ranma knowing that I'm gone."

"You digging deeper hole by second," the guide muttered, though he didn't seem angry, just extremely confused.

The younger man thought for a moment, before nodding. "Basically, I got told by someone who can apparently see the future, and who I've got good reason to believe, that it's really important that Ranma train at Jusenkyo, but if he hears your warnings, there's a good chance he won't."

"This person wants your student to be cursed." The guide said, flatly.

"Yeah," the customer said, equally flatly. "I know, the curse can royally screw up your life. I've gotten used to it now, but for the first few years..."

"Mr. Customer, you no want do this." This, again, wasn't a question.

The martial artist nodded. "Yeah, but I have to."

"Understand," the guide said, quirking his lips up into a smile for a moment before he covered it by turning to take the boiling kettle off of the fire. "I not warn your student."

"Thanks," the younger man said, turning and leaving.

HR.

Ranma was nervous. Scratch that, he'd been nervous before. This morning, he was terrified. He'd been worried over his Sensei's training before, but usually, Saffron would just warn him that the next bit of training would be a little more strenuous than normal, or disappear for a while, setting something up in the woods nearby. The day before, he had been sat down, and the older martial artist had flat out offered him the opportunity to opt out of the trip to the training grounds they were going to, warning him that this was the end of the training trip, but that it would make it nearly impossible for him to turn off of the path he'd chosen.

Ranma had, of course, agreed to go through with the final training, though his stomach had apparently decided to try and relieve stress without the rest of him, doing back flips. Cresting a rise, he saw that they were entering a large, mist shrouded valley, little sparkles of sunlight playing off what looked like water beneath. Next to the path stood a portly grey haired man wearing a wrinkled Chinese Army uniform, smiling at them and waving.

"Hello, Mr. Customers! Welcome to Jusenkyo!" He yelled, as the two approached. Saffron nodded at him, and he lead them the rest of the way down to the valley floor, where Ranma saw that the water he'd previously noticed was in the form of hundreds of small pools, ranging from a foot to about twenty feet wide, each of which had at least one bamboo pole in it.

"This place doesn't seem all that bad," he muttered, and his Sensei smirked at him.

"So, you've figured out the training this place is supposed to give ya, huh?" The older man asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ranma nodded. "We fight or balance on the poles, right? The water's there to break our fall?"

"That's what a setup like this is usually for, yeah." Saffron agreed.

"So... this one is different?" Ranma asked, wondering what his teacher was playing at. He didn't get an answer, however, as the older man simply vaulted from his position near the edge of one spring, landing gracefully on a pole in its middle. Gesturing back at Ranma, he bounded to the next one in line.

The pigtailed boy nodded, straightening his white fighting gi before leaping up himself, landing on the first bamboo pole and cautiously testing it to see if it was sturdy. Finding it well seated in the mud, he leapt towards the older martial artist, his foot coming around to deliver a vicious kick. This was easily countered as Saffron brought up one arm, pushing forward and sending his student flying back to catch himself by grasping onto another pole with one hand, and flipping over to a third.

The battle went on for several minutes, the two martial artists trading blows and acrobatic moves as they continued out into the springs. Ranma could tell that his teacher was leading him somewhere, but couldn't really figure out where, and also couldn't really stop it. Bounding off of one bamboo pole as the pony tailed martial artist landed, he was suddenly shocked as his teacher blurred around on one foot so fast that Ranma couldn't follow it, and smashed him in the center of the back. He went flying, almost completely uncontrolled, and just barely managed to catch himself, digging his fingers into the ground between two springs and slamming to a halt, almost dislocating his shoulder.

Regaining his feet, he looked up to see Saffron still standing on the pole, one arm out-stretched from the blow that he could still feel across his back. "I touched the ground, guess that means it's over, huh?" He asked, disappointed both that he had lost and in the confusing lack of ultimateness in this ultimate training ground.

"I didn't say that was the losing condition," the pigtailed boy's teacher said, cracking his knuckles. "This fight is only going to end if one of us ends up in the water."

"Wha..." Ranma started, before the other martial artist disappeared in a blur of movement, and he raised his defenses just in time to catch a punch on his forearm, stumbling back.

Several minutes later, Ranma's entire body felt like someone had been running it over with a car, and he was rethinking what today was supposed to be about. It was obvious, really, now that he thought about it. This match wasn't about some new form of training that his Sensei had devised. The pony tailed man's constant assaults, at a strength level that he had never used while training his student before, had made that clear. Ranma smirked, barely managing to redirect a punch that probably would have knocked his head off, before using the backwards force he'd obtained to help propel him into the air and back onto one of the bamboo poles. Saffron had mentioned this fight ending the training trip, and he'd clearly meant it.

With a feral grin, Ranma leapt off of the pole with all of his force, hearing it crack and splinter behind him as he delivered several shots in rapid succession to his Sensei, all of which were blocked. The response was a similar set of attacks, and Ranma was so focused on blocking them that he didn't notice the kick that almost took his legs out from under him. Leaping above it, he was unfortunately caught in the gut by a punch that knocked all of the air out of his lungs, gasping desperately for breath, he leapt off, deciding that the Saotome secret technique was perfectly applicable in this situation, gaining some distance from his opponent while he recovered.

Saffron was immediately on his tail, and he began frantically bouncing from pole to pole, trying to make his path as unpredictable to track as humanly possible. This, of course, was making it rather hard for him to recover from the punch he'd taken, and his vision was starting to get rather spotty at the corners when he heard a loud snap, followed seconds later by a splash.

Landing unsteadily on the ground, he turned to see the broken end of a bamboo pole sticking out of the nearest spring, his now female teacher sitting in it with the water coming up to her waist. "I... I won?" He asked, stunned.

The woman looked at him, then down at her hands for a few moments before she started to laugh. He slowly stepped forward to the edge of the water, not sure exactly what was going on, but deciding to offer his teacher a hand. She continued looking between him and her body for a moment before accepting it and pulling herself up, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Congratulations, Ranma." She said, with a grin. "I've got some stuff to think about, but you can head back to camp now if you'd like. You should probably get packed, 'cuz we're heading home in the morning."

"Yeah, thanks." The pigtailed boy said, wondering about the strange look on the older martial artist's face as she turned and leapt away over the springs.

HR.

"She's gunna kill me," Saffron stated, as she sat, cross-legged on the edge of a cliff overlooking Jusenkyo. She wasn't really sure why she was up here, other than the fact that it was a quiet place to think, mostly about how horribly things had gone wrong. "Why is it you've gotta always be as annoying as possible?" She muttered, looking across the valley, and at one spot in particular.

She replayed the fight she'd just had with her student, remembering every time Jusenkyo's usually very loose dirt had acted like concrete under Ranma's hands and feet, or the times he'd impacted with a pole hard enough that it should have shattered, but it stayed perfectly intact. Then, she recalled somehow missing the badly damaged pole in the spring of the drowned girl, falling in, and feeling the change just like had happened many years before. "I get it," she muttered, "but she's still gunna kill me."

Standing up and taking one last look at the valley, the martial artist turned and headed back for camp.

HR.

"Kasumi! Nabiki! Akane!" The shout bounced down the halls of the Tendo Dojo, causing one of said girls to jump, smacking her head off of a beam that was impossible to see in the total darkness she needed for her work.

Irritably, Nabiki closed the lid over the box filled with fixing solution and opened the door of her closet turned dark room, rubbing her forehead and wondering if it was going to bruise. Stomping down stares, she saw that Akane had entered from the Dojo, her hair dripping with sweat and Ukyo following behind her, battle spatula casually slung over her back.

"What's up, Daddy?" The middle Tendo drawled, leaning casually against the door, while Akane and Ukyo took seats across from the long haired man at the dining table, where he sat holding a postcard with a picture of a playing panda on the back.

"I wanted to tell all of you at once, where's Kasumi?" Soun asked, looking around for his eldest daughter.

"She's working at Dr. Ono's clinic, dear, remember?" His wife said, entering the room from the kitchen. "Now what's this announcement you had for the girls?"

"Ah, yes, I suppose I'll just have to tell Kasumi later," Soun said, clearing his throat. "You all know my friend Genma, correct?"

"Um, Ucchan lives with him," Akane said, pointing over to her friend, who nodded.

"Right..." The Tendo patriarch shook his head. "Well, Genma's son, Ranma, has been on a training trip for the past several years. This postcard," He waved it around for emphasis, "is from his teacher. The trip is apparently over."

"Ran-chan's coming back? When?" Ukyo asked, leaning forward excitedly.

Soun nodded. "His teacher estimates that they will return within the next two weeks."

"That's great!" Akane said, knowing that while she didn't really care one way or the other for the boy, Ukyo had really missed her best friend over the past few years.

"Yes, well," Soun continued, rather confused by the girls' comments. "Long ago, it was agreed that when the children had come of age, Ranma would marry one of the Tendo daughters in order to join our two schools of martial arts."

The room descended, suddenly, into a dead silence, the only sound that could be heard that of the cicadas outside.

"It was decided? By who?" Akane finally burst out.

"That's a very good question," Mrs. Tendo said, leveling a death glare at her husband.

"Um, Midori-chan, I thought we'd talked about this?" Soun said, looking nervous. At the shake of his wife's head, he gulped loudly.

"That jackass!" Ukyo yelled, leaping up and unslinging her spatula. "I've got a fat old idiot to talk to," she continued, before bolting out of the house and leaping over the wall.

"She's engaged to Ranma," Akane explained, as Soun looked in confusion between his wife and the open porch door.

"Great," the Tendo father grumbled, as he considered both the two daughters who were giving him very dubious looks and the wife who was still glaring at him. "Kitchen?" he offered, tentatively.

Mrs. Tendo nodded curtly, and the two got up, leaving the table.

"This is going to be a big one," Nabiki muttered, whistling after her father had left easy earshot.

Akane nodded. "Dead man walking," she agreed, before turning to head back to the Dojo. "I'll pray for him at the shrine."

Nabiki chuckled before heading back upstairs to resume her interrupted photograph developing.

END.

Sorry the Chapter's short, but due to the fact that I want to reveal things slowly after this second big and third total time skip, I felt that I couldn't go any further without writing another chapter's worth, and while this was the easiest chapter I've written in, literally, years, I really didn't want to risk burnout.


	11. Chapter 10:Welcome Home, Stranger

A new chapter. Hopefully, there will be multiple updates from me in the next week or so, as I've got one for Spiritual Mage lined up as well. Hope you enjoy this one!

Chapter 10:Welcome Home, Stranger.

Two figures trudged through the rain, walking through the centre of the Neriman market district. None of the other pedestrians paid them any mind, even as the younger of the two glared irritably at the older. "I still don't understand why we're going to this place, rather than home," he grumbled.

The older, a red haired woman with her hair tied back in a ponytail, shook her head. "I told you, it's important that we go to the Tendo place first. Don't worry, you'll figure out why after we get there."

"I wish you'd stop saying that," the boy grumbled, flicking his pigtail irritably to get rid of some of the water that was stuck in it. "Usually means it's going to hurt."

The redhead chuckled. "Maybe your brain," she conceded, "But we're still goin."

The boy nodded, simply looking around as the two walked and deciding that he could argue whether it was worth it after he saw whatever he was supposed to see. Fortunately, the place he was being lead to seemed to be close to the Saotome home, so it wasn't like he was going to have to go far. For a moment, he thought about what he was going to do when he actually got there. His training trip was, for all intents and purposes, over, and he'd be free to do whatever he liked, then. Of course, he'd have to go to school, his mom would insist on that, but maybe he could...

He was jolted out of his train of thought when he heard his Sensei knocking on a door, realizing that they had entered a large, walled front yard and were standing on the doorstep of a really old, fancy looking house. As he took that in, the front door opened and a brown haired girl appeared. "Hello," she said, before she seemed to take the two of them in fully and a radiant smile blossomed over her face. "Saffron-san?"

Ranma wondered why his teacher wasn't saying anything in response, before he realized that the girl's eyes were locked straight onto him. "Um, I'm Ranma Saotome," he said, and seeing her downcast expression, added lamely, "Sorry."

"I'm Saffron," his teacher said a moment later. She seemed to pause unnaturally for a moment, before continuing with "Do I know you?"

"No, I'm sorry," the brown haired girl said, her face seeming to flicker between several expressions too quickly to follow before it settled on a polite smile.

She was about to speak again, when another voice came from deeper into the house. "Hey, sis, who is it?" a girl with short, blue-black hair tied out of her face by a sweatband asked,

Her question was quickly answered as another girl followed her out of the living room, and immediately yelled "Ran-chan!" Nearly bowling both sisters over in her rush to tightly hug her old friend.

"Urk... Ucchan..." the pigtailed martial artist choked out, "Not so tight!"

Ukyo immediately released her grip, but didn't look very apologetic. "Well, that's what you get for not contacting any of us for two years."

"It's kinda hard to send a letter from a Chinese jungle." Ranma defended himself, somewhat weakly, only to get a very irritated sniff in response.

"This argument is really interesting," the blue-black haired girl interjected, before Ukyo could retort, "But maybe we should let Ranma and his friend inside? It can't be all that comfortable dripping rain out on the porch."

"Oh, yeah, you're right, Akane." Ukyo said, backing off and letting the two martial artists in, where they quickly swapped their shoes for a couple of spare sets of house slippers. "And this is Saffron-sensei. The person who's been teaching Ranma, and who taught me all those holds you hate so much."

"Oh, nice to meet you," Akane said, bowing shortly, to which Saffron responded with a short bow of her own before the group headed for the living room. Noticing that Kasumi had been unusually silent since the introductions had been completed, her younger sister hung back and caught her. "Is something wrong?" She asked, worriedly.

"No, nothing," Kasumi replied, shaking her head.

Akane gave her a dubious look, but decided not to push it, following the others into the living room, where her parents sat, working on some of the Dojo's paperwork.

"Ah, Ranma, you're here!" Soun said, bolting up from his seat and smiling happily. "I'm glad to see that your training trip has been completed. I'm glad to meet you, my boy!"

"Um, yeah," Ranma responded, bowing slightly. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Tendo?" He trailed off, not sure if the name Saffron had mentioned on the way was the right one to use.

He was reassured a moment later, as Mr. Tendo smiled broadly. He was about to open his mouth, when a tap on the leg from his still sitting wife drew his attention to her rather stony expression. "Um, yes," he said, clearing his throat nervously. "How about I call your parents over, and we can talk about a few things."

Ranma nodded, still confused. "Yeah, it'll be good to see Mom and Dad again." Mr. Tendo returned his nod, rapidly proceeding out of the room and to the telephone in the front hallway.

As he left, Mrs. Tendo spoke. "Would you like to sit down? Have a cup of tea?"

"Yes, please." Ranma decided, sinking to the floor and settling on one of the cushions at the table's edge. To his relief, Ukyo sat next to him, and Saffron took a position on the other side. Mrs. Tendo picked up the teapot in the middle of the table, rested a hand against it and grimaced before standing and heading into the kitchen. "Okay, what's going on here?" He asked, quietly, as the older woman left earshot.

His Sensei just shook her head, and he couldn't tell exactly what emotion made up her expression, so he turned to his oldest friend. "Apparently Genma made more than one Marriage promise for you," She said, her previous expression of joy at seeing him replaced with a mild glare at the tabletop. "He and Mr. Tendo made a promise that their two schools of "Anything Goes Martial Arts" would be joined through the marriage of their children. Mrs. Tendo... didn't take it well, since she hadn't been told about it, so they decided that there would be a meeting of the two houses to figure out what to do when you came back."

"Oh," Ranma said, and then turned to Saffron. "And you thought it would be a good idea to let me find this out when I showed up because..."

The redhead smirked. "If you can't take a little surprise like this, you're not that good at anything goes, are ya?"

Ranma grimaced. Sometimes his teacher's thought processes gave him a headache. Sometimes, he just wanted to kill her in her sleep. He hadn't decided which of those two situations this was, yet.

His pondering of that very important question was interrupted when a nervous throat clearing came from behind him, and he turned along with the others to see the brown haired girl who had welcomed them to the house fidgeting with her fingers. "Excuse me," she started, "Forgive me if I'm being rude, but I thought Saffron-san was male?"

Ranma's teacher winced, reaching up to fidget with her ponytail, but the boy himself just smiled. "Well, she is, about half the time," He responded, ignoring the warning look he was getting. At the brown haired girl's confused expression, he continued, "Sensei's got a shape shifting curse, based on water temperature."

"A... a curse?" The girl asked, sounding dubious.

"Yeah, Ran-chan's telling the truth, Kasumi." Ukyo agreed. "I saw it a few times while I was traveling with them."

Saffron nodded, before rubbing her forehead. "I'll show you when your mother gets back with the tea, if ya want."

"Yes, that would be interesting," Kasumi responded, her face conveying doubt, curiosity, and... relief? Ranma was about to ask about that, when Mr. Tendo returned to the living room.

"Ranma, your parents are on their way," he announced, before taking his seat and throwing a nervous glance over at the kitchen door. Saffron chuckled, but Ranma wasn't sure why.

HR.

The small group conversed for a few minutes after that, interrupted when Mrs. Tendo arrived, and Saffron used some of the hot water she brought to return to male form. The people in the room who hadn't seen the transformation before proceeded to ask questions for the next ten minutes, until there was a knock on the door.

Mrs. Tendo excused herself to get it, leaving the room and returning a moment later with Genma and Nodoka Saotome. Ranma immediately stood, only to be hugged tightly by his mother. "It's good to see you again, Ranma-chan!" She said, happily, followed by a nod and grunt from her husband. Ranma laughed, somewhat embarrassed as his mother pulled away, looking him over. "You've certainly grown up to be quite the martial artist," she continued, beaming proudly.

"Um, thanks, Mom," the boy said, nervously batting at his pigtail with his left hand.

"No-chan, you're embarrassing the boy," Genma exclaimed.

Nodoka looked somewhat irritable. "I'm greeting my son after not seeing him for two years, husband." Genma looked like he wanted to say something, but refrained, moving to join Soun at the table, her following.

"So, Ranma-chan, how was your trip through China?" The Auburn haired woman asked, accepting a cup of tea she was offered with a nod. Ranma began to explain, starting with the swim from Hiroshima to the Busan region of South Korea. Everyone listened, most of them being a bit shocked at some of what he described, though Genma seemed curiously intent, wishing to know, in detail, about all of the training grounds he'd visited.

"Dad," the pigtailed boy interrupted, "How about I tell you about them later?"

"I suppose so," Genma grumbled, leaning back slightly as Ranma continued.

"After that fight at the place with the poles, we headed straight back to Tokyo," the young martial artist finished. "Sensei said the training trip was over, and then I got this whole engagement thing sprung on me."

"Yes..." Mr. Tendo cleared his throat nervously. "The Joining of the Schools."

"I'm already engaged to Ucchan, aren't I?" Ranma replied, looking confused.

"The Tendo agreement supersedes..." Genma started, before he was interrupted by a loud whistle from a rather unexpected source. Everyone turned to Saffron, who looked around somewhat nervously before speaking.

"Ranma, Akane and Ukyo've been training in the Tendo School, why don'tcha go out to the Dojo and have a little spar while we hash out this whole engagement thing?"

Ranma frowned. "This is pretty important, I don't think leaving myself out of the decision of who I marry is a very good idea."

"You're right," Saffron nodded. "But I've got a feeling a bunch of people here have their own opinions on this, and we're going to get into a screamin' match if we don't settle it between ourselves first." He smiled. "Basically, we're going to figure out a compromise we can deal with, then if you don't like it, you've just got one opponent to fight."

Ranma looked dubious. He didn't exactly have anything against Mr. or Mrs. Tendo, and wanted to believe his Mother had his best interests in mind, but sometimes someone else's idea of your best interests differed dramatically from your own. Looking at his Sensei, he asked, "So what's your stake in all this?"

"I don't want my only student to go insane while trying to figure out multiple conflicting obligations," the ponytailed man responded. "My base stance is going to be ta leave you alone and let you guys figure it out, but there are some honor promises or something involved here, so..." He shrugged.

"You guys up for a spar?" Ranma asked curiously, turning to Akane and Ukyo. His old friend nodded eagerly, and the youngest Tendo followed her as she stood, all three leaving the room.

"Kasumi-chan, why don't you go and watch them?" Mrs. Tendo suggested, gently. Kasumi got the message, and quickly, though reluctantly, left.

The five remaining occupants of the room sat for a few moments, not saying anything, before Genma spoke. "I don't see what there is to talk about," He grumbled. "Soun tells me that you chose a Tendo, correct?"

Saffron winced. As subtle openers went, that one failed on all levels. For a second, he felt the urge to heatedly deny the 'accusation,' but held it back. "Yes, I think Akane and I were getting closer before I got sent here." Genma was nodding self-assuredly, when he was cut off by the younger man continuing his statement. "No thanks to our fathers and their idea of match making, which was to push the two teenagers who were constantly tearing strips off each other together as much as possible, so they could learn to get along. Did I mention it took over two years, she almost died, and by getting together I mean we weren't insulting each other as often?"

Genma's mouth snapped closed, and a second later, Nodoka spoke. "You mentioned that your father and Mr. Tendo were encouraging..." she seemed to be having a hard time figuring out how to say what she was about to, but finally decided on something, and continued. "They wanted you and Akane to marry. What position did I take about this?"

Saffron winced. "You gotta understand, Mom got kinda... off after me 'n the old man vanished for over a decade," he started, and noting that Nodoka was beginning to fidget, continued, "She thought that all the engagements proved that I was very manly, and thought that honor would be satisfied if I took Akane as my bride and, uh... had the others as mistresses."

"Well, Nodoka, you certainly became a lot more... open," Mrs. Tendo said, somewhat stunned.

"I would never..." Nodoka started, mortified.

"And that's sorta the point," Saffron cut her off. "You wouldn't do that, and who I almost got together with doesn't really mean much for Ranma."

"I don't understand," Nodoka admitted, confused, though Genma seemed to be thinking.

"I didn't really, either," Saffron confessed. "I only started figurin' it out when we went to Jusenkyo, and Ranma didn't get cursed."

"Wait, you tried to curse my son?" Nodoka asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Saffron raised his hands defensively. "Hey, it wasn't my idea!" he shot back, deciding that, since all of the events on it had already been fulfilled or screwed up, he could show them the list he'd been given by Skuld. Pulling it out, he handed it to the alternate version of his mother, his finger resting on the third to last entry.

She read, and then her eyebrows rose. "Who are the "Chinese Amazons?"

"Long story," Saffron muttered, "but they aren't likely to show up."

"But I thought that everything on the list was supposed to happen?" Genma asked.

"Yeah, but the Chinese Amazon thing sorta needed the curse for Ranma not to just end up married and living in the village, and that's if he even did what I did the first time." Saffron responded.

"So, why didn't Ranma gain your curse, and what does this have to do with Nodoka's supposedly strange beliefs about manliness?" Mrs. Tendo asked, deciding to get the conversation somewhat back on track.

Saffron paused for a moment, trying to think of the right way to present things, and rather thankful that he was about to blatantly steal from Cologne's side of a conversation he'd engaged in before waking up in the pit again. "someone I used to know had a few theories about the springs. She thought that the curses they gave might not be based off of bad luck or footing," he started.

"She thought that each curse might be meant to try and teach its victim something, or to show something about them that might be hidden, otherwise. Some people, like the chosen guides, can pretty much dance around the pools all day and not worry about getting tossed in, while others will end up in the spring that's right for them even if they have ancient martial arts grand masters trying to rig it so they don't get cursed."

"So you're saying that this... Jusenkyo made you turn into a woman in order to teach you something?" Nodoka asked, uncertain.

"Yeah, pretty much," Saffron nodded. "When I first showed up in Nerima, I was... I think Akane called me a 'Macho Jerk.' Curse took me down a peg or two," he scratched his head, embarrassed, "And I really needed that at the time. Also got me ta start thinkin' stuff through by myself rather than listening to the old man all the time... No offense, Genma."

"None taken," the bald martial artist replied, though he did so through a slight grimace. "What you're saying is that since Ranma didn't get cursed, he didn't need to learn the same things as you did, and isn't the same person." He then sighed. "Which means that just hitching him to Akane and hoping for the best isn't going to work."

Saffron nodded.

"So, what do we do about this?" Mrs. Tendo asked. "Unfortunately, my husband and Saotome-san had a contract registered regarding the joining of the schools, and are both still rather adamant about it."

"Good question," Saffron muttered sourly. "Have you told them about Kaori Daikoku yet?"

Genma looked confused for a moment, before recognition dawned, and his face paled. "Who, exactly, is Kaori Daikoku?" Nodoka asked, dangerously.

HR.

Elder Ku Lon stifled a sneeze as she and the other members of the Amazon council sat observing a short, pudgy man in an old Chinese military uniform standing before them. "Few fell victim to the springs this year, honored elders. I believe that the last of those blasted training ground lists with Jusenkyo as an option have finally circulated and been discarded," the man reported.

Cologne nodded. She honestly didn't know what one of the previous elders had been thinking when they had willingly told a traveling writer about the legend of the springs, thus drawing thrill seeking fools and prospective martial artists by the dozens to a place they shouldn't be entering. "Were any of the victims of interest?"

The guide nodded. "The victims weren't, really. A young Musk boy who was out hunting and blundered into the spring of drowned boar, and an American 'adventurer' who left with a dog curse several months ago, however two guests arrived who did not get cursed while there. One of them was a Japanese man who was already afflicted with the curse of the drowned girl spring, and didn't want a cure. The other was his student. The cursed one asked me not to give his student warning of the springs, and claimed that he was told to bring him there by some form of seer."

Elder Leu Fa snorted. "Don't tell me we've got another group who are attempting to use the cursed springs for power?" She asked. The Musk were enough of a pain to deal with, and they really didn't need more.

"I do not believe so, Honored Elders," the guide replied. "He seemed not to want to do what he was doing. As you know, however, the springs do not take well to one entering and trying to use them for a specific purpose. The boy left uncursed, and his master apparently took another swim in the Nyannichuan."

Cologne tapped her chin in thought. "That is quite an interesting incident," she conceded. "Can you tell me anything else?"

"The man seemed to know of the Amazons and Musk, reacting badly to the suggestion that he was using the ancient Musk methods of obtaining a bride. Both seemed to be very skilled martial artists, as well. The name he signed on the register was also strange, Saffron Reynolds, and I couldn't find any Nyannichuan victims with that name in previous records," the guide explained, providing as much information as he could.

The council chamber got slightly louder all of a sudden, as sixteen elders whispered between themselves. The name could easily be a coincidence, and almost had to be, given the fact that Saffron was still currently in his child state and would likely stay that way for a while yet. Still, this visitor possessed quite a lot of knowledge, and an unrecorded curse, if he hadn't just been lying and obtained the drowned girl curse when falling into the spring during his most recent visit.

"Thank you for this information, Guide." Cologne spoke, after several minutes of quiet discussion. "Please tell the warriors to help you get your provisions and payment prepared, and return to the pools."

"Yes, Honored Elder." The guide said, bowing and turning to leave the room.

HR.

Ranma had to admit, he was impressed. Individually, Akane and Ukyo were pretty good, though not on his level, and the spars they had had proved it, as he dodged them relatively easily, sending exploratory jabs into openings when he saw them. After about five minutes of sparring each, they had stood down, and nodded to him, before Ukyo asked if he was willing to fight them two on one.

Not seeing any reason why he shouldn't, he'd agreed, and found an interesting surprise. Two opponents obviously made the fight harder, simply due to having more attacks to dodge from more angles, but Akane and Ukyo were more than that. When they fought as a team, they nearly effortlessly covered each other's weak points, and the pigtailed martial artist found himself pushed.

For instance, at the moment, Akane was launching a strong offensive, while Ukyo stood off to the side, throwing a wooden practice knife every time he tried to take advantage of one of the blue-black haired girl's larger openings to deliver a decisive finish. When he managed to move to the side, forcing Akane into Ukyo's line of sight, the support attacks stopped, but a moment later Akane simply rolled away, rather than following through on the punch she was telegraphing, and he received a combat spatula to the side of the head.

He rolled with the blow, the opposite direction Akane had gone, and noticed an opening in Ukyo's guard which he abruptly capitalized on, his leg shooting out to tag her knee, though he was sure not to put enough force into the blow to break anything. Caught off guard, Ukyo stumbled, stepping back. "Okay, sugar, I think that's enough for now," She said, slinging her battle spatula across her back.

Ranma nodded. "You two are pretty good," he complimented. "You train together a lot?"

"Pretty often," Akane confirmed, climbing to her feet.

"Cool, never really thought about a two person style before," he commented. "Still, ain't it a bit of a disadvantage when you're forced to fight alone?"

"We're working on that," Ukyo admitted, as Kasumi approached from the side of the room.

"You are quite good, Ranma-san," she offered, while looking the three over for injuries. "According to Nabiki, no one at school can keep up with Akane and Ukyo-chan for that long."

The pigtailed martial artist laughed, scratching the back of his neck. "Uh, thanks," he said, nervously. "Who's Nabiki?"

"My older sister," Akane explained. "She's probably out somewhere finding something to take pictures of."

"She could be looking for the lost boy again," Ukyo offered, smiling slyly.

"Honestly," Akane huffed. "I hope not, I thought she gave up after identifying one of the pictures he took for her as an Egyptian pyramid?"

"Just giving possibilities," Ukyo said, shrugging.

"Do you think the parents have finally decided what they're going to try and do about the engagement thing?" Akane asked, looking nervously at the walkway that connected the Dojo to the main building.

Ranma and Ukyo winced. "Not sure," the former admitted. "Mom's pretty obsessed with the whole family honor thing, and Dad seemed really determined to have the Tendo arrangement go through, but I've never really thought about Marrying anyone."

Ukyo nodded. "I always thought it would happen someday, just..."

"Not today?" Kasumi offered.

Ukyo nodded again.

"Fine," Akane said. "Then let's go in. We gave them half an hour, if they haven't figured it out by now, then maybe it's time for that yelling your Sensei talked about."

Both Ranma and Ukyo chuckled, the three proceeding to the House, while Kasumi looked on, nervously.

HR.

Several minutes later, the young martial artists, along with Kasumi, were all sitting on one side of the low dining table while the parents and Saffron sat on the other. "I really wish Nabiki were here," Mr. Tendo said.

"We can inform her later, dear." Mrs. Tendo returned, before clearing her throat. "We've decided that the Tendo contract's more concrete nature is balanced rather well against the fact that the Kuonji dowry was already taken," she said, throwing a glare at Genma, who looked somewhat sheepish. "As such, we've worked out a compromise. There will be no wedding until Ranma has graduated from high school, at least."

"Ranma can marry any of the Tendo daughters," Soun started, "and if he and Akane, Nabiki or Kasumi decide to wed, then Genma and Nodoka have agreed to adopt Ukyo, and add her to the Saotome family in that way."

"But..." Ukyo started, but was quieted, for the moment, as Saffron spoke up.

"I don't really agree with what your Dad said," he explained, but the main reason he wanted you to go with Genma was because he wanted to make sure you were taken care of and thought he couldn't handle it."

Nodoka spoke, this time. "Ranma can marry you, Ukyo, if the two of you want it. In that case, he must agree to work together with the named Heir of the Tendo school of Anything Goes martial arts in order to create a merged style, and help teach it. Also, if the Tendo heir wants it, the agreement can be attempted during the next generation."

"If none of you chose to marry, then Ukyo will be adopted by the Saotome family, and Ranma will help out with the merged school," Soun said, though his distaste with this option was almost palpable.

"So, who's the Heir of the Tendo School?" Ranma asked, looking curiously between Akane, Ukyo and Kasumi.

"That's me," Akane said, returning his look. He thought about that. He didn't really know Akane, but her martial skill was pretty good, and he hadn't immediately gotten off on the wrong foot with her, or anything.

"Are you willing to work with me on the school if this falls through?"

Akane studied him for a moment, apparently making an assessment of her own. Eventually, she nodded.

"I suppose it's all right," Ukyo said, uncertainly. She could still marry Ran-chan, and it wouldn't get Akane or her family in trouble.

Nodoka nodded. "Hopefully, if any other... surprises... come up, we will be able to deal with them as well, correct Husband?"

"Yes, dear." Genma sighed. He'd just recently gotten out of the doghouse over some of the more... questionable decisions he'd made during Ranma's early training, and apparently the Daikoku mess, which in all fairness he'd forgotten almost completely, was landing him back there again.

"Good, then we can go home." Nodoka stood, taking a moment to bow to Soun and his wife. "I would like to get Ranma settled into the house before it gets too late."

The elder Tendos nodded, as Genma stood, followed by Ranma. As he rose, his Sensei did as well, walking to the door with him. "Are you coming back to our place, Sensei?" Ranma asked, the term seeming somewhat odd in his mouth.

"Nah," Saffron shrugged, effecting indifference, though Ranma could tell that something was bothering him. "Not sure what I'm going to do, but I might be leaving pretty soon."

"Where are you going?" The pigtailed martial artist asked, surprised.

"I said might," Saffron rebuked, gently. "I'm really not sure, but I'm done training you, so..."

"I see..." Ranma said, standing still for a moment. Abruptly, he bowed deeply, in the respectful fashion he'd only seen drawn in history books a few times. "I thank you for all you have done to train me, Sensei," he said, as formally as he could.

Saffron shuffled uncomfortably. "Quit that," he muttered, drawing the younger boy back up. "Just don't go slackin' off."

"Yes, Sensei," Ranma replied, before turning to follow his parents, who were standing near the door waiting for him.

HR.

The view of Nerima was very familiar, as the ponytailed man who currently called himself Saffron leaned back against the shingles of the Tendo Dojo's roof. Granted, they dug into different parts of his back and legs, as he'd grown a bit since he'd last sat where he currently was, taking in the barely visible stars and the soft light of the district below them.

He'd asked Mr. Tendo if he could borrow one of the spare bedrooms for the night, and he'd quickly agreed, though after only a few minutes in his old room, the martial artist had become restless, following a well remembered routine and leaping out of the open window, flipping backwards onto the roof.

"Figured you'd show up," he remarked, as a shadow fell over him even in the dim starlight. The owner of said shadow, a young girl with dark hair and a hammer slung over her shoulder, slumped down on the shingles next to him, pulling her feet up to her chest and enjoying the view. "Pretty, huh?" He asked, casually.

She nodded.

"Akane used to ask me if I were obsessed or something, coming up here all the time. Once she accused me of trying to peep on someone across the street, or somethin'." No response. He sighed. "So, you here to tell me how much I screwed up, again?"

"No," she said, quietly.

"Huh?" He asked, stupidly. "Look, even I know it. I couldn't get him cursed since I didn't raise him right, so I thought taking him to the Amazons was too dangerous, and I know the Amazons are the only ones who'll get him the techniques he needs, which he might not be able to learn anyways, since I..."

"It doesn't matter," she interrupted him.

"It what?" He asked, turning his attention away from the horizon and towards her directly.

"It doesn't matter," she responded, and then, seeing that he was about to ask for clarification, she continued. "Some things happened back home over the past couple of years, so I wasn't able to check things as much as I'd have liked to. When I took quick, long-term looks, everything looked about right, so I left it to run." He nodded, trying to at least look like he understood what was going on.

"All of the projections I was able to come up with said that the cursing should have gone as planned, but as you pointed out, your younger self just isn't really meant for the spring of the drowned girl any more. The projections shouldn't have even been capable of showing things on track, by this point."

"So... your future seeing stuff's broken?" Saffron asked, mostly guessing.

"Somehow, Yggdrasil's direct timestream interpretation software's not working the way it should. It's only showing a single timeline, one which we've heavily diverged from by now." Skuld snorted. "If I'd have actually been paying attention, I would have realized that I could occasionally catch glimpses of Genma in the predictions."

"So... what now?" Saffron asked.

"I... don't know," Skuld responded. "This was all meant to be a cleanup operation after a temporal incursion; I'm not normally supposed to alter the future this much!"

"Well, given how much has changed, their ain't much I can predict anymore, either," Saffron responded. "Guess this means I'm not goin' home any time soon."

Skuld shook her head. "Any interference you cause is still outside of the demonic and godly realms," she explained. "Good or bad, what you do here is your right and responsibility."

"And you want me ta try and make sure it's good, right?" Saffron chuckled. "Typical."

"I'm sorry," Skuld said, and the ponytailed man realized that throughout this entire conversation, she'd sounded nervous, rather than her usual kind of bratty self-assuredness. "I'm asking my older sister Urd to take a look at the timestream interface. She's one of the best administrators Yggdrasil's got, even if she is a drunk. I just need you here to make sure that nothing really horrible happens... I'm not sure how long it'll take."

"Don't worry about it," Saffron shrugged. "I've waited a decade, I can wait a little longer."

"Thank you," Skuld said, before standing and leaping off of the edge of the roof.

"You're welcome," Saffron muttered, before slumping back to stare up at the stars, his eyes slowly closing. He was home in at least one way. He could wait a little longer to get home in the other.

END.

Well, there we go, folks. Through at least one restructuring of the entire future plot and a good deal of flying blind, what someone who I may or may not have imagined has called the "Training Trip" arc is finished. No, the story as a whole is not, as now we get to see the results of a radically different group of people on Nerima, and yes, even though the Amazons seem similar right now, they will be different... I think.

Don't you love my level of certainty?

Hope you enjoyed! If you did, or if you hated it, please inform me in a review!


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